


904: Repression Sessions

by agelade



Series: Lustra: A Supernatural Season 9 AU [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas and Crowley Party Planning Services, Gen, Hallucifer, Hell Trauma (Dean), Sammy-Not-Sammy?, Sleep Deprivation, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agelade/pseuds/agelade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode 4 in Lustra, a Supernatural Season 9 AU. After the crisis in Boston, running errands for Death, Dean must find a way to cope with Sam's less than sunny outlook on life and keep him going until Death's little cure shows up. But when she finally does appear, will she do more harm than good? Meant to be read in order with the rest of the stories in this series.</p><p>Oh, and Happy Eighth Birthday Supernatural!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

****

**Episode 904**  
" **Repression Sessions"  
Chapter One**

The drive back to Kansas was twice as long as the drive out to Boston had been. Part because Dean was being careful of Sam's awesome new car sickness, developed in oh, say, the past several hours of laying across the back seat, half conscious. And part because the trip included a stop at some small-town ER to make sure Sam's cracked melon wasn't going to get worse.

Dean had read that each seizure increased the chances of another, and the one in Boston made three total of the grand mal variety, starting with the one that damn leviathan had caused by cracking him upside the head, and who knew whether the two petit mal flavored ones Dean had caught Sam out in counted, and who knew whether those had been the only seizures Sam had had or if they were just the ones Dean knew about.

Either way, the doc in charge wanted more information about Sam than Dean could give without sounding looney, and he wasn't about to push him toward the relevant contacts at Northern Indiana, not after FBI dudes had made it clear they knew that detail and could track them. Without enough information, the doctor insisted on some tests, and Sam being Sam, he asked about all of them.

Blood draws. MRI, but they'd have to get a referral to the hospital in the city about half an hour up the highway. Spinal tap, they could do that right here in the ER.

And as soon as the doctor left them for some paperwork, Sam slumped like he'd been working hard to keep himself upright and said, "Okay, we're out of here."

"What? Sam-"

"I just want to go home. Please."

But his face was pleading, way too intense for someone just eager to sweat in his own sheets, and Dean frowned. "What's up?"

"Nothing. I just-"

Dean watched him. Big guy, suddenly a fidgeting twelve year old. "Sammy."

"Our insurance won't scan."

"We're at the ER."

Sam looked at him, hands shoved under his thighs, knees together, feet tapping the doors to the cabinet under the examining table, one after the other in a pattern: _duhduh dun duhduh dun_. He shook his head. "Dean I can't-"

"What, afraid of needles suddenly?"

Sam looked away from him, mouth open, raw terror, shame. His feet froze in the air, mid-tap. Shit.

"Okay. Okay. We're out of here. Let's go."

So they left, bundled out of there fastlike, Sam trying not to lose his lunch, until they hit the car, Sam literally, and he let loose in the parking lot.

So that had been fun. And now they were still about eight hours from home.

"Sorry," Sam moaned from the back seat.

Dean kept his eyes on the road. "Stop apologizing."

"Sorry-" A sigh. Then, dejected, "...sorry."

Dean peered at Sam in the rear view, grinned. Sam was shaking his head at himself, rolling his eyes at himself. "You're fine, princess."

Sam smiled a little.

"Wanna do some questions?"

Sam took a deep breath, nodded, but he looked away when he did it, embarrassed. Dean's smile faded into half-something. Something he hoped looked understanding.

"What year is it?"

"2013."

"What's your name?"

"Sam Winchester."

"How old are you?" Dean watched him, flicked his eyes from the road back up to the mirror. Sam looked at him, and Dean remembered:

Two hundred and ten. Older than you.

_You're okay, Sam. Just work it out._

Sam looked away from the mirror, into the space next to him. Dean snapped his fingers. Crap. "Thirty, you're thirty, Sam."

Sam looked back at him, nodded, licked his lips. "Yeah, yeah I know."

Close call. Dean didn't want to play questions anymore. Sam was with it enough for him to know his seizure crap was backburnered. That was the point, nothing else.

"I'm not actually thirty though, Dean."

Dean frowned.

Sam slid down into the seat, sideways like it was possible for him to spread out over the backseat even though he was like nine feet tall. He draped his forearm over his eyes. Sleep was in his words: "I'm thirty-one."

Thirty-one? Shit. Shit, Sammy's birthday. Was like two weeks ago. Shit.

Sam groaned, made the face, twisted over and reached for the door handle just as Dean pulled over to the side of the road for the third time since the hospital in Bumfuck, Nowhere.

Sam was half out of the car by the time Dean got the car into park and had turned in his seat to check on him, the words "Sammy, you're okay" on his tongue only to find himself face to face with Sam's skinny blue jeans ass in the air, his front half hanging out of the door. Poor kid hadn't even gotten out of the car before losing all the nothing in his stomach to the shoulder of the road.

Dean turned back around in his seat, rolling his eyes. From behind him, he heard a pitiful voice say:

"Sorry..."

* * *

Cas greeted them at the car. Crowley greeted them just beyond the door. Kevin greeted them with microwave burritos and beer.

Sam smiled at all of them, smiled at all of them and nodded thanks and listened as Cas told more stories about his dreams and Crowley sat near to him, near to him and just watched him, or just closed his eyes, breathing. Dean had taken Kevin into the kitchen.

Sam was stranded with an ex-angel and this almost purified demon in the living room, trapped on the couch, and he felt suffocated, or maybe too hot, or maybe like he needed to go into the bathroom and sit under the shower to wash the vomit out of him, the black out of him, the red.

"We were lost in a wide forest," Cas said. "Light shining down through the trees to the ground, but it was nighttime. White light, like a spotlight. The trees created a maze that we had to fight through. And there was music. It sounded dangerous."

"Who's we?" Sam asked.

Cas tilted his head, like he hadn't thought about it. "I'm not sure. I thought it was you and me and Dean, but now I'm not so certain. In the dream, it felt very much like I knew them, like they were you, but now I don't think they looked like you at all. You were angels."

Sam frowned. "It's just your brain trying to sort through stuff that happened when you were awake."

"This is normal?"

"Yeah."

"Is this what it's like for you? What's happening to you now is all a dream, your brain trying to sort through what happened to you when you were awake, in the cage? Is this whole life just a dream for you, Sammy? Are you going to wake up soon? You've been asleep in this castle for so long, the mice miss you-" Cas stopped suddenly, leaned forward into Sam's space, took him by the shoulders and said, "Sam?" and Crowley said, "Moose? Are you all right?"

Sam blinked, gasped back into realtime. "Fine, I'm fine."

"Wanna do questions?" Dean said from the archway to the living room. He was frowning, backlit by the light from the warroom, and the line of him standing there was anger, disappointment, annoyance.

"No," Sam said. "I'm good."

"If that was a seizure, you should do questions," Kevin said, poking out from behind Dean.

Sam shook his head, embarrassment rising. "I'm good, really. Not a seizure thing." He felt warm. Really warm, over his head warm, and he couldn't breathe. Part of him observed from a distance: _perpetually on the edge now, aren't you. You're going to get really tired. There's nothing to be afraid of. There's no one here who doesn't want you to be safe, even Crowley has some weird obsession with you. So knock it off. Knock it off._

Sam leaned down over his knees, just a little, just to manage the nausea, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the vertigo, and he tried to hold his breath because otherwise he'd drown, he'd breathe it all in and he'd drown in it, and when he opened his eyes again, long moments later, or maybe years later, or maybe seconds, it was because there was a heavy warm hand on the back of his neck, and the room was dark, and Cas and Crowley and Kevin were gone, and Dean was there.

"You're okay," he was saying, and it sounded like he'd been saying it over and over, rubbing the back of Sam's neck.

"This is such a problem," Sam said.

"A week, Sammy. Remember? She'll be here within the week. You just don't worry about anything. Act as batshit as you want, no one's going to rag on you for it, or they'll have to talk to me."

"You really think I'll make it, Dean? What if I-"

"Shh," Dean said, and sat on the couch and pulled Sam to him by the shoulder, heavy and warm arm across his back heavy and warm like gravity, density, real. "I got you. I'm watching out for you."

Sam closed his eyes, swallowed. He hoped it was true. Those moments in the hotel in Boston replayed themselves for him on a loop; he'd been ready to end it. Confused about who his real brother was. He still wasn't sure what he'd thought. Either he thought the Dean he saw was Lucifer and that's why he didn't think he was his brother, or the other thing. The far more frightening thing.

That he'd been fully convinced _Lucifer_ was his brother, the thing that whispered to him for nearly two centuries that he loved him, between torments and agony, the cool touch the sweet voice murmuring _I'm the only one who loves you, Sammy_.

"Sammy?" The hand on his shoulder squeezed, shook him, just a little. "You still with me?"

Sam nodded, blinked. Dean was looking at him in worry. Sam sensed he'd spaced again.

"Wanna go lay down for a while?"

Sam shook his head.

"Come on, you're dead on your feet. Let's go."

Sam shook his head again.

"Why not?"

"My room's. Uh. Nevermind."

Dean narrowed his eyes at Sam. "What's wrong with your room?"

"Nothing, nevermind."

"Sam-!"

"It's a cave, it's a pit, it's a trap- God, fuck, sorry." Sam closed his eyes and focused on breathing.

"Shit. Okay. Listen, there's a little meeting room off the balcony. Has a window, private bathroom, the works. I'm gonna make that up for you. You just chill out here, okay?"

"You don't have to do that Dean-"

"I know."

"I mean it. I can handle sleeping in my own room."

"Too late. I'm already picturing curtains and a matching New Kids On The Block bedspread." Dean withdrew. Patted his knee and stood.

"Dean," Sam said before he could get too far away.

"There's no use arguin' man-"

"How much have you told Kevin?"

Dean shook his head. "Just the seizure thing, I swear. I gotta go shopping and stuff. If I'm not here, someone needs to know what to do."

Sam nodded, swallowed. "You should tell him - about the ... You know. He's the only one who doesn't know."

"You can say the word, Sam. Say whatever you want. Don't worry about me. But are you sure?"

Sam shrugged. "He's our prophet. He should know. And I'm... not exactly fighting fit, right? This isn't normal. He knows something's going on that isn't trials stuff, and he was standing right there when Death was talking about how... uh. How much time I have. If I was him, I'd be going crazy not knowing."

Dean smiled a pained bad-joke smile. "Phrasing?"

Sam laughed. "You know what I mean."

* * *

"You heard me," Dean said, working the wrench. "A birthday party. Two weeks from now, after this psychic shrink has psychically shrunk Sam's head. I don't think he can take a surprise right now."

Kevin raised a brow, gathered the bolts from the floor as Dean dropped them. "You think one therapy session is going to fix that?"

Dean shrugged, wiped his brow. "I'll make a judgement call. If it means I have to tell him about it five minutes before we walk into the room and you all yell surprise, so be it."

Kevin frowned. "Okay... Assuming it goes down like you want, how are you going to pull off a surprise party? You're practically joined at the hip."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Come on, it'll be fun. God knows we could use fun around here. He'll never expect it."

"How old is he?"

"Thirty-one, apparently." Dean got to his feet and surveyed their work.

Kevin shrugged. "I was close. I guessed either twelve or fifty-four, so." They both turned as Cas and Crowley came back into Sam's room. Crowley dusted off his hands and held them out.

"Mattress and boxspring moved. What's next? Use and abuse me, darlings. I promise I don't mind."

Dean was leaning over to pick up his beer from the dresser, and he pointed with the bottle at the pile of parts he and Kevin had dismantled, metal frame and rich wooden head and footboards. "Don't scratch it."

"Aye aye, Capitan. Dressers too?"

Dean looked back at the matching dressers. A few books littered the top of the shorter one; the taller one hosted Sam's duffel bag. "There's nothing in them. We can leave 'em for now. But take the nightstand. I think there's already a lamp up there."

A couple of hours later, Dean stood with Sam in the converted conference room off the balcony, the only bedroom in the place so far that had real windows. It also had glass french doors though, so the next order of business was going to be to cover them up somehow, or even replace them with real doors. For now, Dean had tacked a couple of sheets up behind each glass panel so that Sam could have some privacy. The bed took the place of the conference table in that room, which got moved into the library for the time being. Sam's duffel bag went into a supply closet, and his toothbrush and stuff got shifted into the private bathroom. Good hard work, good simple effort he could put toward making his little brother feel better, even a little.

Best room in the house now, but it looked completely bare, unlived in. No different from the room Sam had been living in since they'd found the bunker, actually, and Dean put that on the list of crap to talk to Sam about once his head was fixed.

It was a long list. Purgatory, Sam's year of living comfortably, the fact that he was possibly sipping a little demon blood (always demon blood, written in the stars for Sam, every Sam) to feel steady, the whole trying to die thing which had become more than just a sacrifice thing after the stunt in the motel room in Boston, and now, the fact that he had never actually moved into the bunker.

Or maybe it was all connected. Maybe Sam had never intended to live in the bunker. Maybe he had never intended to _live_. But he'd seemed so sincere at the Cassity ranch-

Whatever. They were going to talk it all out. Whether Sam said he wanted to or not, because it was a test and Dean was going to pass it goddammit.

"Dean," Sam said, looking around the room in wonder. "How did you do this? I only crashed for like an hour."

"Demon slave labor!" came Crowley's voice from down the stairs.

Dean yelled back through the open door: "Shut it." He turned back to Sam and shook his head, little smile. "An hour? Try three, dude. Plenty of time for demon dude down there to haul all your crap up two flights of stairs." He grinned wide. "So? What do you think?"

Sam smiled. "I like it."

"You _like_ it? We just spent all afternoon-"

"I love it."

"That's better."

Sam grinned and walked further into the room, toward the windows, peering out to see what they overlooked. "Dean, you didn't have to-"

"Shut it. It's done. And you can stay in here, right? It's okay?" Dean watched Sam stand by the window, watched him close his eyes and breathe in slow, like he was testing whether the sun on his face was real. Sam had once been tan from it, had once been this golden child, when Dean was twenty and Sam was sixteen and his whole world revolved around keeping this brilliant bratty kid safe. When Dean had been so idealistic that he could see only the best things in Sam, Sam had been golden and Dean had been the keeper of the sun and that had been the best feeling in the world. Sam opened his eyes and looked at Dean, and Dean felt the sun there, like he could be the keeper of it again, maybe.

"Yeah. It's great, Dean. Thank you. Really."

Dean smiled. "Settle in. Finish your nap. I'll wake you for dinner."

* * *

"Okay. So you said you saw them in town?"

"I did," Cas confirmed. "I saw their faces, in the grocery store."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you mentioned. You saw this guy too?" he said to Kevin.

"Yeah, but he just looked like a normal guy to me."

Dean made a little note in his journal. He definitely saw the draw of writing everything down now. Maybe it was just the effect of living in one place, having a home base. Maybe it was living amongst books and journals and binders full of things that had been written down, generations of people he was supposed to number among. To Sam, it came naturally, and maybe Dean took after their hunter mother more than the Men of Letters Winchester side of things, but still. It had started to feel natural, writing things down, checking them off, putting down questions he needed answers to.

God he felt ordered for once. Maybe he had more in common with his Sam-less self than he'd thought, all tidy and neat inside for once. A shudder ran through him. He didn't want to be a Sam-less version of himself, never again.

But uh, writing things down. That was okay.

"Of course he did," Cas said. "You didn't have my dream. But Dean it was very clear. This man was a member of the Federal BI. He was going to come and take you and Sam away and commit physical and mental harm-"

Dean shook his head, muttering _Federal BI_ under his breath. "Okay. We'll go out on the town today, see if you can spot him or anyone else from this dream. Kevin-"

"I'm on it."

"He's sleeping. Don't wake him up."

"I know. I'll walk by his room and keep an ear open like every half hour or so?"

"Works for me. Grocery lists?"

Kevin shoved a piece of paper at him and Cas held up his own.

"Okay. We should be back in an hour or so. And Kevin?"

"Yeah?"

"No more picking fights with our pet demon, okay?"

"Who's picking fights?"

"You are. Knock it off."

Kevin rolled his eyes. "Yes sir."

* * *

Kevin knocked on the glass. Dean had tacked up enough bed linens to block out even the vague shape of anything in the room, but Kevin could see the afternoon light leaking in from around the makeshift blinds on the french doors.

No answer. He knocked again.

"One sec," Sam said, muffled behind the door.

Then he answered it, and his hair was huge and poofy and when Kevin looked past him into his room, it looked like he'd lost a fight with his sheets.

"Rough nap?"

Sam sighed. Shrugged. "No worse than usual."

"Can I come in?"

"Oh, sorry, course. Or we can go downstairs. I don't have a chair up here."

"No, I mean. I kinda want to talk... alone."

Sam frowned, glanced into a corner of the room, but then he nodded. "Sure, come on."

Kevin lingered a moment in Sam's doorway. Sam had left the door open, but was already headed back to his bed. He threw out his little knitted blanket to remake his bed; Kevin smiled just a little. Cas was messy. Dean was disorganized. Sam was probably the neatest one of them, the most like Kevin preferred to be. You know. Before all the crazy had gotten dumped on his AP student life.

Sam sat on his bed near the headboard, folding his legs up; he'd left a huge amount of space at the foot of the bed for Kevin. It felt just a little like some slumber party, a little too intimate.

But Kevin had helped Dean take this bed apart, had put fresh sheets on it and found a nicer blanket in a supply closet, something he thought would be softer, warmer than the scratchy wool thing Sam had been using. And he'd been the one to take the old sheets away and put them in the ancient washing machine. He'd seen the faint traces of blood across Sam's pillowcase, smelled the salt of sweat on those sheets, and the laundry soap that said Sam changed these sheets every day when he was up to it.

Sitting on Sam's bed across from him was kinda small potatoes compared to that, but Sam didn't know anything about the sheets or the laundry or the blanket. And somehow, with Sam _there_ , it was different. Sam was watching him, like he'd expected this visit.

Kevin swallowed, came in, sat where directed to. Looked around. Stalled.

"Kev? What's on your mind?"

Sam's voice was big and soft. Kevin had told Crowley that his demon imposters were too polite to be the real Sam and Dean, and he wasn't lying, but there was something else missing about them that Kevin hadn't been able to pinpoint. He thought, at least where Sam was concerned, it might have been this voice of his, this expression of complete humility in a moment when it mattered. Demon Sam could only dream of this kind of complete investment.

"I'm havin' a hard time," Kevin said.

Sam frowned, leaned forward. "With?"

Kevin closed his eyes. "Crowley," he said, and opened them and regretted saying anything, because Sam was obviously taking on guilt over it, and Kevin rushed to say, "Just, it's hard. With the things he's done, to me personally. But I'm cool, I'm cool. I know like, logically, I know what the situation is. I just. I can't-"

Sam was quiet. Looked at him in consideration. "How can I help?"

Kevin shrugged. "Maybe, if it's not too personal or whatever. You can talk me through what happened at the church?"

Sam took and released a big breath. Everything about the guy was big. He made a face like, _wow, okay, here we go_. "Like I said, I thought we did everything, I really did-"

"No. No that's not what I - I mean. With Crowley. He must have said something to make you trust him, make you forgive him."

Sam frowned. "That's not really..." He stopped, tried again. "I haven't forgiven him. I don't know how that will work. And that's not what this is, anyway. How can someone earn forgiveness if you don't even give them a chance to make amends?" Sam spoke like he was talking to someone else. "I want to give Crowley that chance because he asked for it. Because he was crying, because he asked me what he could possibly do to make up for what he's done." Sam shrugged. "I guess that desire was enough for me. But I can't tell you that it should be enough for you too."

"But I want you to." Kevin shrugged. "I'm at a loss here, dude. But I'm not leaving, and apparently neither is he, so I just want... I don't know. I want you to tell me why I should - how I can be okay with him."

Sam watched him, chewing on his lip in thought. "Maybe just talk to him. I don't know if it'll work. He's... well, he's Crowley. But I think he's sincere when he says he wants to somehow be forgiven. He was human once, you know? All I did was bring that human part of him back."

"But that human was a bad guy, if he went to hell," Kevin said.

"Likely. But we've all done crap, you know?"

"Not hell-worthy crap."

Sam narrowed his eyes at him, and Kevin raised his in concern. "What? I didn't do anything hell-worthy."

"No, I know," Sam said, sounding drifty. "I'm just saying, if there's no hope to be forgiven... what are any of us even doing here?"

Kevin frowned. Sam was looking off, toward the windows. He sounded a bit vague, maybe like he was about to fall asleep again, or space out like he'd been doing.

"Sam?"

Sam looked at him, blinked at him drowsily.

"Okay, let's get you back to sleep," Kevin said. He slid off the bed and hovered in case Sam needed help or whatever, but Sam just hitched himself down on the bed enough to get his head onto the pillow where it lolled, and he was sprawled just everywhere on top of the blanket.

"You don't have to go. I'm fine," he mumbled.

Kevin laughed. "Yeah, right. Dean'll kill me if he thinks I'm keeping you up."

"Dean won't kill you."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Kevin said, and it was mostly a joke, but Sam didn't reply and it looked like he was already mostly asleep again. Kevin tugged on his arm to straighten it out so he didn't sleep on it wrong, and it probably didn't matter to Sam at all because as far as Kevin could tell, Sam was basically a walking symptoms list of chronic pain disorders. But straightening him out made Kevin feel better, made him feel useful, and whatever Dean said, and however Kevin felt about it, he was going to shift his priorities and try to find a pause button on the trials for Sam before anything else.

Not that this was all trials. Not that seizures and spacing out and panic attacks every few hours and losing time were trial things. Death had said that Sam didn't have a lot of time left, and whatever, maybe Sam didn't want to talk about whatever his problem was, maybe Kevin just wasn't important enough to be told. Whatever.

Kevin pulled the other side of the blanket up and over Sam where he lay, a Sam taco in a soft blanket shell - ugh, hungry. And he smoothed it down over Sam's chest, and he murmured, "Man, what's wrong with you?"

And Sam breathed through sleep, "I did something hell-worthy."

* * *

"Did he sleep?" Dean asked. He set down the groceries in the kitchen and started sorting through them. Cas put down his own grocery bags and started attempting to decipher Dean's sorting, and Dean rolled his eyes.

Kevin watched from the doorway. "Yeah. Woke up for a little bit, we chatted. He went back to sleep."

"Chatted?"

"Yeah. Chatted. I'm allowed to talk to him, okay? You can't keep him shut up away from everyone."

"I'm not - Whatever." Dean took a bunch of bananas out of Cas' hands and put them on the counter.

Cas frowned. He reached over toward where Dean had piled boxes of the protein bars Sam had asked for, bottles of vitamin water, some bland fruits, bottles of multi-vitamins - basically, Sam's pile of stuff Dean wasn't going to let anyone else touch. Anything overly processed seemed to upset his stomach, anything cooked sent him into a panic spiral. Dean had a menu plan worked out that would keep Sam's nutrition up without setting him off. He'd spent two hours on the internet with Kevin to put it together.

And now Cas had a box of the protein bars in his hand, and he was saying, "I'll take these up-"

And Dean swiped the box from his hand.

Cas frowned. "But it would be more convenient for Sam to have these nearby-"

"Yeah. I know. I'll take them."

"But-"

"You just stay clear of him for a while, okay?"

"Dean," Cas said, beseeching.

"And no friggin' _praying_ , got it? You just stay out of his head-"

"Dean," Sam said, behind Kevin in the kitchen doorway. "It's okay. Okay? I mean. I understand why you're-"

"No. No Sam, you don't understand. You didn't have you watch your brother, just give up-"

"Yes I did." Sam's voice was hushed, face earnest. Kevin backed out of the way, but Sam didn't come closer, just shook his head. "I watched you give up. For a year, I watched you just... run toward death. Pretending everything was okay. Refusing to try to help yourself. I'm not saying you should just forgive me and forget about what happened in Boston, but just. Don't ever say that I don't understand." Sam held his hand out, and dumbfounded, Dean put the box of protein bars into it. "Thanks."

And then he was gone again.

Kevin broke the silence. "What happened in Boston?"

"Nothing," Dean growled, and he slammed out of the kitchen, not to find Sam, not to talk with him, just to get away. Maybe go for a drive.

But he found himself outside of Sam's new room anyway, just listening. There was nothing from the other side of the door. "Sam?" he said.

No answer.

"Sammy, I'm not gonna forget Boston, okay? But we're clean slated. No forgiveness needed."

Still no answer.

Dean put his hand on the door handle, but he didn't turn it, didn't try it. If it was locked - If he found it locked, he knew he'd just break it down. Better to choose not to try it. He took his hand off the handle, stepped back. "Sammy, I'm just downstairs, okay?"

And he fled down the steps.

* * *

The week passed that way. Sam came out of his room often enough, interacted, laughed a little. Until something caught his eye that no one else could see. Dean was watching, counted the minutes of Sam pretending he was fine, continuing the conversation or watching the movie or doing the research. And then Sam excused himself, steadied himself on the railing to go up the stairs, and locked the door of his room.

He said he was resting. So Dean camped out outside his room. Nothing. No talking to someone who wasn't there, no high-pitched whine he could mistake for the ancient HVAC. But Sam wasn't sleeping, that was obvious when he came back downstairs.

And Dean didn't expect him to. Didn't pester him about it. Tried to minimize loud noises, surprises. The days ticked down through the week toward Death's not-so-magic magic cure, and as they went, Sam's condition deteriorated. The sleep deprivation on top of the trials crap sent him spiralling so much sooner than it had before, when all Sam had to deal with was Satan crooning terrible songs to him day and night.

So, Sam became a jittery zombie who heavy-breathed through his days and smiled hopelessly and on more than one occasion had tried to have some kind of mumbling heart to heart with Dean about the real possibility that Death's cure might come too late for him, or that Death might have found their research lacking afterall, or whatever, just don't be so upset, Dean, because I had a good life, okay, I got to save some people, I got to have the best brother ever, and if that's my legacy, then that's enough.

And then Dean would say something angry and biting because he just couldn't, okay, accept that Sam was so ready, even more zen-like about it than he had been the first time, locked up in a mental ward, and Sam would look at him like, okay, I deserved that, and then he'd stumble his way up the stairs and lock the door, and-

He said he was resting - Lucifer or Dean drove him there, stress and fatigue drove him there, to rest. But never to sleep. Sam and sleep, fucking written in the stars.

It had been at least six days. From the signs and symptoms Dean had _memorized_ during Sam's last bout of critical sleeplessness, he sounded like he was a lot further down the line, at least mentally. He still had his fingernails and his stupid hair. He could still walk around. But he was having trouble remembering things, he said things like _Wednesdays we build mouse houses out of the broken pieces_ and just looked at Dean like he was nuts for not understanding.

_Thursdays they'd creak if we don't,_ he'd explain, patient. _I have to save them. It's too heavy, but my bones are strong._

So, maybe nine days, crazy-wise. Maybe he had two left before his brain just gave out. Maybe.

When she came, Sam was downstairs with everyone, kicking Dean's butt at chess. Sam had a whole cheering section behind him. Dean even allowed Cas to stand within arm's length of Sam, because while it had been kind of a blip on the radar full of Death telling him all this crap about how Sam was basically destined to suffer, Dean hadn't forgotten. He just told himself that Cas had been a different person when he let Sam out of the panic room.

And that had to be that. Because if Dean examined it any further, he'd just be reminding himself why he was getting his ass handed to him by someone three inches away from braindead, that Lucifer was tormenting Sam because Cas had linchpinned that for them. In any universe, as soon as Cas found Sam, he dragged him into killing Lilith. Even when Sam was actively trying to resist, Cas hounded him. So yeah. No thinking about that. Just enjoy Sam slowly making his moves across the board, speaking gibberish, but still somehow brilliant at the game, although Dean was claiming he let him win, no question.

And then the knock came.

Had to be her, had to, please God, and Dean opened the door. She was cute, shorter than he'd pictured. Curling brown hair, expectant look. She carried a little bag over her shoulder, wore a little brown blazer, jeans. Not quite what Dean had expected.

"Dean, right?" she said. She had a little southerny accent. Yeah, cute.

"At your service. You're the shrink?"

"Uh... I'd prefer not to use that term."

"Yeah, yeah. Okay, come on. He's in here."

But Dean turned to gesture her in and smacked Sam in the chest as he walked up.

Sam stared.

"Hi Sam," she said.

Sam took a breath, blinked. Then he said:

"Amelia?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks again to Caladrius, who patiently talked me through my issues with this chapter, and whose story, Boogeyman (shameless plug) is explicitly referenced once again in this chapter.**

* * *

****

**Episode 904**  
" **Repression Sessions"  
Chapter Two**

Castiel watched as Kevin led Sam away from the table where the chess board had been set up. Kevin was unsuited for the task; he was much too short. If not Dean himself, it should have been Castiel's shoulders Sam draped his arm across, Cas' hands gripping him for support.

But Dean hadn't let him anywhere near Sam aside from that first half hour after they'd returned from Boston, and hadn't been interested in talking to him beyond Cas' strange and terrible dreams of warning regarding the men in suits.

He deserved some kind of punishment, of course. Even if some of his worst transgressions were now years in the past, he had done so many terrible things, many of them to Sam himself. He needed redemption, and he had overheard-

Castiel watched as Sam and Kevin attempted to climb the stairs up to the front entrance, and then he turned to go.

"Where are you goin', pigeon? You're gonna miss the show."

Castiel turned to Crowley. "I desire redemption. I'm going to try to make Sam, and therefore Dean, happy."

Crowley frowned. "How's that? Forward Squirrel the receipt for Moose's happy ending surprise?"

Castiel narrowed his eyes. "A happy ending would be ideal, but I'm uncertain whether that is possible for either of them now. However, there is a surprise involved."

"What... kind of surprise?"

Castiel glanced up again to check Sam's progress. He leaned in. "I overheard Dean and Kevin making plans for a surprise birthday celebration for Sam."

"Ooooh, and you want to take over the planning while Deano is otherwise amused with our little poppet's little problem. How delightfully romcom. I'm in. What did you have in mind?"

Cas looked at him. "Are you willing to miss 'the show' in order to accomplish this task? We should talk elsewhere while they are otherwise occupied."

Crowley frowned at him and looked back at the staircase with longing. There was a long moment of consideration on Crowley's part, and Castiel tried to guess what he was thinking of. Sam there, his shoulders thin, his frame hunched as Kevin tried to support him; did Crowley regret anything? Was he attempting to punish himself, make himself as aware of the plight of these humans as he could be, these men whom he had attempted to break? Sam and Kevin and Dean upstairs at the door, who, graciously or not, allowed Crowley to share this space with them. Was Crowley even capable of that sort of thinking, now that he was somewhat purified? Cas thought so, as he watched the demon's gaze linger there. Crowley made a disgruntled face, then turned to follow Castiel, saying, "Yes fine, all right."

They set up their base of operations in a storage room a floor down. Castiel had already begun to make lists. Crowley picked one up and perused it.

"Oh poor sweet parakeet," he said, "this is a travesty. Sam doesn't need balloon animals. He needs a good lay."

Castiel watched him a moment, decoding. "You believe we should hire a young woman whose father has abandoned her." Crowley looked at him as though he had said something strange, so he clarified. "A young woman who sells her-"

"A prostitute? Oh, don't be such a prude. I know you lot have that word. You condemn it all over the Big Dumb Book."

Castiel felt warm, flush, looked away. "I don't like it. It's crass. These young women are simply attempting to survive in what is quite possibly a Godless world."

"Oh yes, just trying to pay their way through grad school, every last one of them."

"Nearly seventy-percent of the women Sam has had romantic intimacy with have died, at least one of them by your hand," Cas said, angry, embarrassed and keenly aware of it. "We should stick to my list."

Crowley rolled his eyes and sighed, looked over the rest of Castiel's ideas. "Oh good, a clown," he picked out. "Because he's eight years old."

"Sam is thirty-one." The conversation was getting away from him. He needed more practice, but the only people he ever talked to anymore were living in this bunker, and _they_ all thought he was strange.

Crowley tossed the list back onto the little table. "I'm going to take pity on you. Here's what we need. A date, a distraction - Dean will do, I think. Let's see. Entertainment. Gifts. Drinks, food. Uh, people?"

Castiel frowned. "We have people."

"You, me, and mini-Moose don't count, pet. Sam's got to have some friends."

"Charlie Bradbury." Cas thought some more. "Perhaps Charlie will bring a date."

"Oh good, one outsider and a complete stranger. However will we plan for such a large guest list?"

"Perhaps _I_ will bring a date."

"I'm already invited, but thanks."

"I'll bring Lethaniel. She likes Sam. Sam knows her."

"That prissy pinfeather? Please be joking. She didn't even help him!"

"But she loved him. That should be enough."

"Fine." Crowley was watching him, guarded. "Garth," he suggested.

"Yes, of course! Garth." Castiel started a list. It had three names and a potential plus one. They thought in silence, struggling to find even just one more name to add.

Then Crowley took a breath, a deep one, and said, "Jody Mills."

"She's alive?"

Crowley nodded. "She doesn't know that I - what I did to her. I don't know how we'll explain my presence here."

Cas frowned. Crowley stared at the paper on the tabletop, tracing nothing over it with a finger. His demeanor had changed, the air around them thickened in a way Cas could feel like a phantom limb, this sensation of mood he once had felt like sight or taste or hearing. But he thought it was more human than that angelic sense now lost to him; he thought it was "empathy" and he touched Crowley's arm to share it. "We'll figure it out," he said, and he smiled, and Crowley looked at him like he was crazy, but not like he was stupid, or even strange. Castiel nodded. "We'll figure it out," he said again. And then Crowley smiled, just a little, and he wiped down his face, and he cleared his throat.

They thought for another minute. Four names and a plus one. There had to be more. Once, there would have been at least a dozen.

Then Cas said, "What about the woman Sam was with while Dean and I were in Purgatory? Amelia."

* * *

"Amelia?"

"Hey whoa." Dean frowned and grabbed onto the hand Sam had stretched out to him, slow and shaky with nervous energy and poor motor control. He felt Sam's weight shift into him as Sam stared at the lady shrink, mouth open, gasping from the hard trip up the stairs. Kevin was still hovering at Sam's back in case he dropped. Dean put his other arm around Sam, clapped his hand to Sam's shoulder, kept him upright, claimed him, in case Sam still had some idea that Dean wasn't his brother. He felt fever in Sam's shoulder where it leaned against him, through the layers of both of their shirts, and he frowned. "Amelia? No, Sam, this is the lady who's gonna fix you up. You remember we talked about this. What'd you say your name was, sweetheart?"

The lady stared at Sam, sized him up, took stock. She smiled, just a little. "Amelia."

Dean's brows made for his hairline. "Wait, _what_?"

"Amelia, what are you doing here?" Sam asked. He was clearly surprised, and he looked pretty lucid. Breathing fast, but he was always breathing fast these days. Dean's hope that Sam was just having a moment and it had just been some terrible coincidence that this lady shared that witch's name evaporated. What the _hell_ -

"Could I come in?" she said.

"No, absolutely not-" Dean said immediately, and Sam said:

"Wait. Dean."

"Oh what is _this_ ," Dean said, the snap of betrayal hot in his head. Goddammit, he and Sam had had a _deal_ , a fucking... truce! Amelia for Benny, and then Dean'd gone ahead and cut off Benny's fucking head for Sam, so what the absolute _fuck_ \- He chuckled dark, yeah wow. "Just let me guess-"

"Dean," Amelia started, but screw _that._

"Oh lady, no. No no. You are not setting one foot in this house, in fact, you better get, before I get my gun-"

Sam squeezed his arm. "Dean, I don't-"

"Don't start, Sam," Dean said. "Don't you friggin' start. You wanna go back to playing house with your whore again, you can take it somewhere else. I'm done with the lies. You know I have been trying _so_ hard with you-!"

But Sam wasn't arguing back. He'd gone rigid in Dean's grip, closed his eyes. He was shaking, and Dean remembered too late, how he'd startle at every loud noise, how he'd shrink back against the wall and just stare, how Dean would find his heart racing, how Dean had memorized a pamphlet about all of this years ago, how Dean should have seen all of this happening days before Sam had upended himself over the hood of a car.

And now Dean had done it again, or maybe it wasn't all him, because Sam opened his eyes and he stared at Amelia, little tears standing up on his lids that he blinked away, and he stepped back, fought out of Dean's grasp, and he was shaking his head. Kevin stood him back up and looked at Dean, bewildered.

"Excuse me... I just need to-" Sam fled.

"Sam! Wait-" Dean called, but Kevin wheeled him away and gave Dean a dirty look and they were gone down the balcony walk to Sam's room.

Dean frowned. He turned to _Amelia_ with poison on his tongue, but she was already looking at him with schooled fury, a tiny nearly vibrating bundle of it, wrapped up in professionalism, and she said:

"We need to talk."

* * *

She didn't wait for Dean to say yes, and she apparently wasn't afraid of his gun. Amelia just walked right into the bunker and went down the stairs, leaving Dean to trail in her wake. What the _shit_.

"Listen, bitch-"

"It's Amelia. Or Dr. Richardson, if you want." She took for granted he was following, because she didn't even look behind her as she swept through the library, looking around for a suitable place to have a private conversation.

And Dean did follow, because the fact was, "Dr. Bitcherdson" was apparently Death's end of their deal, the sick bastard, and they needed her. He overtook her and gestured at the conference table.

She scrutinized it. "I'd prefer somewhere more private."

"This is as private as it gets around here, unless you wanna see the inside of my bedroom, sweetheart," Dean growled.

"Then this looks perfect," she replied, and she sat. She waited for him to sit as well.

Dean stood, arms crossed. Waiting her out. Glaring at her. Daring her to glare back. Her face was so. Annoying. And. Ugly. Like, really ugly, come on Sam, at least pick a winner. Like, her stupid hair was like... brown. And. Dumb. And she just kept watching him patiently.

So _FINE_ whatever, Dean jerked a chair out and dropped into it, rolling his eyes.

"So Sam looks _great_ ," she began, raising her brows in judgement. "Glad to see you're taking such good care of him in my absence."

"Listen you... bitch-"

"Ah, ah, Dean. Let's be grown ups."

Dean frowned. Fury rolled in his chest, in his stomach.

"You're thinking Sam lied to you about who I really was."

Dean scowled.

She watched him. "He didn't."

Yeah right. And then the realization hit him. Right. God. Sam didn't lie. Dean knew that. Sam's face when he saw her - Dean knew Sam's tells, and Sam hadn't lied. And she _was_ sent by Death to help. And she was psychic, and a shrink, and Sam if didn't know that, it meant Sam's entire year with her was-

Fuck. Shit. Dean looked upward, toward Sam's room, where he was undoubtedly having a little lie down because the strain of seeing Amelia, the implications of her presence there-

"Yeah. I get that now, thanks," he said.

"Is he okay?"

Dean blew out a breath. "He's fine. You better just worry about me."

She raised her brows and nodded. "Oh believe me, I'm worried."

Dean rolled his eyes. "He does this. He goes and lays down when his-" Dean made a shaky hand gesture. " _Crazy_ acts up."

"Let's try not to use that word."

"Wow, you sound professional and everything. I guess I trust you."

"Dean. Come on. We want the same thing here."

Dean rolled his eyes, blew out a breath. Fine. Fine. For Sam. "Okay. Fine. I'm on board for whatever fixes Sam."

"Great," she said, and her judgey mothering frown vanished into a bright smile. Okay, fine, she was cute. _Okay_ , Jesus. "So, I understand Sam's having trouble sleeping. That he's recovering from some trauma. Normally, I'd like to just talk to him, get it all from him, but I understand we're a little beyond that point?"

It was phrased as a question, so Dean answered. "Yeah, I'll say. Kid doesn't even make sense half the time these days. You'll have to settle for his next of kin."

"I'll take what I can get." She retrieved a pen and pad from her bag, left it flat on the table where Dean could clearly see it. "Now, Dean. I understand you and Sam were separated for a long span of time."

"Like you don't know," Dean growled. "A year, while you and Sam-"

"That's what I thought." She hadn't written anything down. Her voice went quiet, more personal. "You were lost, weren't you."

Dean frowned. "You could say that."

"When Sam left me, it was because you had come back from the dead."

It wasn't phrased as a question, but Dean answered it anyway. "Yeah, for good, so don't even try-"

"Dean. I'm here to help." She smiled kindly at him. "Listen, I know you don't trust me. I know you have questions about what happened while you were gone-"

Dean's frown promised death. " _Questions?_ Lady, you're lucky to be _breathing_ right now."

"Stop," she said, and whether she was using her psychic mojo on him or Dean just really wanted some answers, it worked. He shut up. He didn't like it, and he didn't like her, and he couldn't even _look_ at her, not with the insinuations running through his head about what she'd done to Sam, and what it would mean for Sam when he'd had time to process it, because another terrible woman in his life telling him what to do and messing with his head was just what his little brother needed. But the fact was, he wasn't letting this bitch near Sam until she had explained herself.

"Fine." He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Spill."

"It was about two years ago, I guess. I couldn't sleep. There was a blaring beacon in my head. I couldn't shut it out. So I went out looking for the source. And I found Sam. Three towns away. That would have been about a month after you disappeared."

"You found him three _towns_ away? What kind of super psychic are you?"

"Not just a psychic. An empath. And honestly, kind of a weak one. But his distress call was on the order of a ten ton atomic bomb. I had to find him and diffuse him if I ever wanted to sleep again."

Dean rankled at the casual discussion of his brother as a dangerous object that needed dismantling, but he blinked it away and said, "So you found him."

Amelia gave him a look. So she knew he was pissed at her. _Good_. "Yeah, I found him. By the time I pinpointed the... epicenter, or whatever, he was taking off in that big black car of yours, and I was able to tail him." She stopped, looked at Dean. Chewed her lip. "Listen, I consider your brother a patient, so if you want _all_ the gritty details, you're going to have to ask him yourself."

Dean frowned. "He's my brother."

Her smile was kind. "Yes, I'm aware."

"Fine. Fine, okay, but you're gonna give me _some_ answers, and I better believe you."

"Fine." She nodded. "If only to get you to understand that I have his best interests at heart." She waited for Dean to nod. "He told you he hit a dog." Dean nodded again. "That's true. He did. He told you I was the vet that treated Riot." Dean nodded, _again_. "That's ... only half true."

"Uh huh." Dean watched her. Psychic bitch. "And apparently, Sam didn't lie to me."

"No. I lied to him." She leaned back in her seat, stared at the tabletop. "I'd been tailing him. He hit that dog, and when I saw he wasn't going to just leave Riot there on the side of the road, I took off to the only vet's office in town. I beat him there, and while he was still bundling this injured dog into his car, I was spinning a story about how my friend had hit a dog, but I was a licensed physician and that I was prepared to provide my services for free, we just needed supplies and an operating room, which I'd pay for."

"And they believed that?"

Amelia shrugged. "And it's the natural state of most people to believe someone who comes in like they know what they're doing. But you're a hunter. You know that. These people ate it up, gave me vet techs and anaesthesiologists, and then when I had no idea how to do anything beyond give this poor dog stitches, they suddenly felt the need to step in, saying I should go sit with my friend." She shrugged, innocent, sheepish, what a bitch. "It's kinda my thing."

Dean frowned. Doctoring was her version of him and Sam suiting up, only she wasn't fake, _and_ she could just psychic someone into doing what she wanted. He was impressed in spite of himself.

She went on. "I convinced him to care for Riot. I should have just let him leave-"

"Why didn't you?" Dean asked. If she had, Sam might have escaped whatever mind control had kept him with her. He might have been able to start looking for Dean, figured out he was in Purgatory, _something_. "Too interested in playing house?"

"Hardly, Dean."

She said it like they were friends, like she knew him well enough to be a smartass with him, and it sounded wrong coming out of her lying filthy mouth. He suppressed the urge to say _bitch you don't know me_ and instead said, "Then what."

She sighed. "I might have sought him out to give myself some peace, but whatever you think of me, helping people _is_ my job. Helping _you_. You hunters, emotionally constipated to a single one of you. Men and women who drink down the deaths of friends and family in the service of saving strangers, and believe me, I applaud you all for the work you do. I couldn't do it, but I also couldn't sit by and do nothing."

"Yeah, looks like you really put in 110% there," he said, eyeing her neat little jacket and unworked hands.

Her face softened. "I'm not a hunter, Dean. I'm no good at it. I found out about this world by accident, and I decided to follow my instincts. I went to school, got my license and an offer from a family friend to work in a private practice. But instead..." She shrugged and gestured outward.

"Instead, you offer your shrink services to hunters. Aren't we lucky."

"I help people, Dean. I helped Sam. Where I could."

"He thinks he loved you," Dean snarled. "You did your witchy way on him and-"

"I know."

Dean stopped mid-epithet. "So then-"

"I had to."

"Bullshit you had to. Sam should have been _out there_ , looking for me! He didn't need some shrink poking around in his head. He needed _me_ , and he'd have found me, if you hadn't-" He broke off, grit his teeth, restrained himself from tossing the table in anger and despair. "A whole year wasted."

Amelia smiled, that patient, patented thing which Dean had had just about enough of. But then she said, " _He_ needed _you_ , huh?"

"That's right," he said, and he didn't care that she could see he was holding back. Because there was fear there, and knowing she could sense it, he had to acknowledge it. Purgatory without his little brother at his back was just a suspended moment, a moment in which time didn't matter, an alliance with a monster didn't matter, his moral compass which had been flagging for years _let's be honest_ didn't matter didn't matter at all, if he couldn't get back to Sammy. And he was afraid of what kind of thing that had made him into.

She nodded as though he'd said all of that aloud. "You and I should talk sometime, Dean. I think it'd do you some good."

"Don't hold your breath," he growled. "Hey, how'd you tag him as a hunter?"

"I'd prefer to talk about that with Sam, if that's all right."

It wasn't a question. Dean frowned. "Fine. Okay, so he hit a dog, you should have left him alone but you _didn't_. So, spill."

"You blame me for Sam not looking for you." She'd written a couple of things down as they'd talked, but Dean was watching, and so far they seemed... harm... less?

"Nothin' gets past you."

She nodded. "You're only half right."

"Half right? Meaning you're gonna tell me Sam - No. Dog or girl or - You don't know him, okay. You don't know what we do for each other. There's no way would Sam just _not_ look for me. "

"You believed it until I showed up at your door just ten minutes ago."

Dean gritted his teeth.

"Now that there's an excuse for it, _any_ excuse at all, you're grabbing onto it. This fundamental belief in your brother has been shaken for an entire year, and you're relieved to be able to set it right again."

"Stop it."

Amelia pressed her lips into a thin evaluative line.

Dean narrowed his eyes at her. "What."

"I'm trying to decide whether it's worth it to shake that belief again. This doesn't just affect you, you know. I think we've just seen how this last year of _your_ pathos has affected _Sam's_ state of mind. Haven't we?" She nodded toward the stairs, and Dean looked up, toward Sam's room, where Kevin was coming down from having settled him in, and yes. Yes.

_Yes_ , yes. Sammy's face, when he said _So?_ and when he shook his head after Dean's impassioned plea and when he said _I'm sorry_ and when he spun toward Crowley and the Latin poured out like a prayer, like begging, like pain, believing he would die, and the shock and despair on his face when it hadn't worked and he was still alive-

And then Boston, Dean still couldn't even _think_ about Boston-

"What do _you_ know about it?"

She shrugged. "Just what I see before me."

"You're telling me to believe Sam wasn't going to look for me, whether you'd found him or not." He waited for her to nod. "Okay. Okay. Then fine. Just, explain it to me, and I promise I won't let it hurt Sam. Not this time. Just help me understand."

She glanced up toward the room in which Sam was resting, lips pressed in thought. Dean didn't fidget, didn't move a muscle. Finally she said, "When I found him two years ago, he was... nearly catatonic."

* * *

Kevin had lingered only a moment at the doorway of the war room where Dean and this Amelia chick were set up. Dean was pissed, and Kevin got it. Hell, he'd been kidnapped, orchestrated his own rescue, and he'd called Sam eight hundred thousand times for help. Only to find out that Sam had been off living a life Kevin felt like he could never have at this point.

So yeah, Kevin got it. But how Dean could get himself so angry as to shout down someone who was basically walking tissue paper was beyond Kevin. Maybe it was a "brothers" thing. Maybe it was a "we've lived together way too long" thing. Maybe it was a "Dean has issues" thing. Whatever it was, Kevin didn't get it, didn't want to get it. And there was someone else to be pissed at for his little year of terror.

Someone he meant to talk to, on Sam's advice. Someone he was totally going to have a lot of whiskey before sitting down with, someone he was going to attempt to forgive, or at least live with.

Someone he was not prepared to be face to face with, there in the little storage room where he'd been secretly correcting Cas' little party planning effort.

"What is he doing here?" Kevin said. He regretted it, because Crowley's eyes were red-rimmed and Cas looked up at him like he was intruding on something personal. But still. He wasn't ready for this.

"We are attempting to put together a guest list for Sam's birthday party," Cas said.

"So steal his phone. Believe me, he won't even notice it's gone right now."

Cas and Crowley looked at each other.

"Right then, that's done," Crowley said. "Any other great ideas? Pretty Bird here wants to hire a clown."

Kevin rolled his eyes and swiped one of Cas' lists. "I've already crossed that out like six times. Why do you keep adding it back in?"

Cas looked scandalized. "You've been looking at my lists?"

"And thank God - or whoever. You have no idea what a party even is."

"Thank you!" Crowley said, exasperated. "I told him guests, gifts, food, drink, entertainment. It's a grown-up party."

Cas looked as much like a pouting child as a grown man could look. "But clowns are delightful."

"They're creepy," Kevin said. He crossed it out. Again. Crowley shoved another list at him labeled "FOOD ITEMS" and tapped on one of them. Kevin frowned. "Okay. No, we're not getting him a... 'very tall cake with a surprise person inside who jumps out and is possibly scantily clad.' For one, that's gross. And for two, are you planning Sam's party, or Dean's? And for three-" Kevin went on, forestalling Cas' answer. "The rest of this stuff is fine for everyone else, all right? But Sam can't eat any of it. So basically, you're just going to be teasing him with all this food everyone else is enjoying while he tries not to throw-up and munches his protein bars. So. Maybe just hor d'oeuvres, okay?"

"You're quite good at this, pocket pet," Crowley said. "You ought to open up a business."

But he wasn't teasing about it, so much as he was ... solicitous. Kevin frowned. He really wasn't ready for this.

"Uh. Thanks." He shoved the lists back at Cas and said, "Fix these up, no more kiddie games or clowns, and tone down the gratuitous barbecue and stuff. I'll uh, be right back." He turned to leave, to get himself together, to - to avoid. Like, everything. Kevin sighed. "Crowley, could I talk to you for a sec?"

Kevin could _feel_ the surprise, but then Crowley was saying, "What can I do ya for?" and following him out of the little storage room.

They wound their way through the mazelike archives of the bunker, to a little study Kevin had found. It wasn't comfortable or very warm, clearly designed for utility for brief stints of research using the archives themselves, but it would do.

"I talked to Sam-" Kevin said, just as Crowley blurted out: "I'm so sorry!"

They stared at each other, only a moment before Crowley had to look away. He blinked and little wet streaks appeared on his face.

"Are you... crying?"

"No."

"You are. Wow. You so don't deserve to get to cry-"

"I know." Crowley looked up at him. "I know. I don't know... how to even start... to..."

"Okay, calm down, jeez."

This wasn't going how Kevin had thought it would. Most of the time, Crowley seemed like his old self, sarcastic and maybe a little mean, just waiting to turn on you or stick a dagger into your back. And he had his "Sam moments" sometimes where he'd turn up in the remotest corners of the bunker, rocking himself and crying and talking to a Sam that wasn't there, and those were the times that Kevin pitied him. But there had been no times Kevin thought he could forgive him.

"So you remember all the terrible things you did."

Crowley nodded. "Centuries of them."

"And now you're sorry for them."

"But I can never take them back, or expect or earn forgiveness, or-"

"That kinda sucks."

Crowley looked at him, surprised. "Ye-es...? It does, completely suck."

"Sam said I should talk to you. He said there's no point in any of us being here if there wasn't some hope that we could somehow be forgiven-"

"He's dismal, isn't he? I mean, if anyone's earned forgiveness, it's that dewy-eyed martyr."

Kevin frowned. "I guess. I mean, he said he did something hell-worthy, and I guess at least _trying_ to close the gates-"

Crowley raised a brow. "I was referring to the whole, dragged Lucifer into a cage with him for a couple hundred years, thing. You know, eternal torment? The whole _reason_ his nut is cracking right now?"

Kevin stared. " _What?"_

Crowley sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Oops. Well, I may as well tell you the whole story now..."

* * *

"When I found him two years ago, he was... nearly catatonic."

Dean scoffed, and he felt a strange burst of pride, because he _knew_ Sam was stronger than that. Sam was stronger than that, and he did that himself, seven years ago in a burning motel room. "I'm supposed to believe that-"

"Yeah. You are."

"You don't know that kid the way I do. You don't know what he's done, endured. There's no way-"

"He had suffered a loss. You know that's true."

Dean snapped his mouth shut. Okay. So Sam had shelved _one_ thing that had broken him. Dean liked to think that had sorta vaccinated Sam against that kind of terrible silence ever happening again, but. Sam wasn't like Dean; he was always trying to feel all his feelings and hadn't learned - or had purposefully stayed ignorant - that feeling your feelings led to inaction and paralysis and overall mopeyness and trying to kill yourself in a church or a motel room in Boston.

And sure, okay, yeah, he supposed Dean vanishing into thin air counted as a loss.

Dean rolled his eyes and waved a hand at her.

"I didn't know what loss he had suffered, not then. All I knew was that I found him, grieving-" Dean nodded to urge her past the parts he knew. "Convinced him to slow down, take care of Riot as something to focus on, and he did. I camped out in the motel he was staying in, to keep an eye on him, and …"

"And what?"

She shrugged. "And nothing. Nothing happened. I didn't expect a change to happen overnight, so I tried to wait him out." She stopped, very obviously deciding against getting too detailed, and Dean shifted to show how impatient he was that she get to the point. "It showed no signs of stopping, Dean. The thing that was keeping me awake, the raw shock of loss that had hit your brother. It should have calmed to a reasonable degree within a day or two after losing you."

"You can't expect him to just get over-"

"Dean, how many people do you think I walk by every day who've lost someone, even recently? How many _hunters_ have I treated who've lost more people than they can count? The human spirit is more resilient than you think. Sam is the only one who's ever kept me up at night, from miles away, a _month_ after the loss. I had to do something drastic."

"And that's when you put your whammy on him."

She nodded. "I know you're angry-"

"Stop reading me-"

"But It wasn't just for me. It was for him too. He fed the dog, walked him, but he didn't feed himself. He didn't leave the house unless it was for Riot's sake. He wasn't okay, Dean. And he didn't show signs of getting okay. So I... I suppressed his..."

"What, emotions?"

"Basically. The grief, guilt, pain, whatever. I pushed it under. The effect was immediate. I slept through the night again. He started coming out of the motel room, talking with people. I saw he was a kind person. He took Riot out for more walks than the bare minimum, taught him some tricks, fixed some things around the motel office, got a job there. He was... okay. He even smiled. I meant to leave as soon as it was done, but-"

"I don't believe this. You don't know what he and I have gone through together. You spin a good yarn, lady, but Sammy doesn't just give up. He never has, even when I was _dead_ , and I wasn't dead."

"No, you're right. I don't know what you have gone through. All I know is what I felt from Sam when I did what I did. Devastation, and I'm not exaggerating. If what's happening now is even a fraction-"

"Shouldn't you know?" Dean asked suddenly. "If you're some empath, you should definitely be getting vibes off him. Believe me."

"Oh. Oh, after Sam." She twisted her mouth to the side, little sheepish grin. "He kinda fried me. I had to invest in a little trinket-" She pulled a glittering red gem from her cleavage, dangled it from the black cord. "It keeps me shielded from-"

"Wait-"

"I haven't been reading you, Dean." He must have looked pretty bewildered, because the witch _laughed_ at him. "You're more open than you probably think, at least when you're angry. Like I said. We should talk sometime."

"Okay. Okay, whatever. So you have no idea what's going on in him right now?" She shook her head. "Well you might want to take a reading before we go in there. It ain't pretty. You'll wanna be prepared."

Amelia watched him a moment. "I suppose we'd all prefer to be prepared when devastation hits."

Dean frowned. "Keep the psychobabbling to a minimum, Jesus."

She smiled a little, took a deep breath, and pulled the pendant off over her head.

Dean watched. Amelia closed her eyes, maybe to seek Sam out from among the other people in the bunker, but then her brows came together and she hissed through her teeth, and she doubled over in her chair and Dean obeyed instinct, rushed to her aid, helped her sit back up. She fumbled with the cord of her charm and he slipped it back over her curly hair, patted the back of her neck as she gasped.

And then Kevin stormed into the room saying, "Why didn't you _tell_ me you bastard!"

And Amelia was clutching onto Dean's shirt getting her breath back and she said, "Sam-!"

"Later, Kevin," he snapped, and he sighed at Amelia, untangled her damned hand from his shirt. He nodded. "Yeah, he's bad, I know-"

"No, I mean he's - We gotta get up there, right now!" She was already fumbling out of her seat, tearing toward the stairs.

Dean took off after her on reflex; she wasn't allowed near Sam, and then his brain caught up to what she was actually saying, and _Sam wasn't okay_.

Sam's door was locked. There was no sound from the other side. Dean hesitated. He'd been trying so hard with Sam, to give him his space, to help him only as much as he wanted helped, to be there for him unconditionally, and above all, to pass that goddamned test. Sam nightmaring, Sam dreaming distress, that was a Sam that gratefully accepted Dean's prodding for dream details, Dean's laughing at the silly parts, an acknowledgement that the dream couldn't be real, couldn't possibly be real. That Sam accepted Dean's outstretched hand offering painkillers and water, Dean's cool cloth on his forehead.

But there were no sounds of distress from behind Sam's glass door. The way to pass the test this time was to leave him alone.

But then Amelia looked at him like _what the hell are you waiting for?_ and from behind them Kevin shoved forward trying to get at the door handle, and Dean decided _screw it_ and kicked Sam's door in. The three of them tumbled into Sam's room.

Stopped.

Frozen.

Not a nightmare, not a nightmare, he was wide awake. Eyes screwed up in agony, hands grasping at the headboard, back arched. Sam shook his head, his mouth opened to form words, but there was no sound. He panted, just a moment, then again his head strained backward and he was screaming through some trauma, but there was no sound.

_No sounds of distress from behind Sam's glass door._


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you to Caladrius for her efforts in editing this chapter. And thank you to all the reviewers and readers. You make it worth it.**

**-L**

**Episode 904**  
" **Repression Sessions"  
Chapter Three**

_**Twenty Minutes Earlier** _

"You're sure you're good," Kevin said.

Sam looked up at him from where he sat on the edge of his bed. Kevin was a strange thing; for one, he had a face, and Sam thought he was human, but Sam hadn't made any humans since he learned how to give them hearts-

No, he remembered, he remembered; Kevin had put him here in his bed. Because he was so tired. Or because he was unable to stand himself upright. Or because Dean had taken a sledgehammer to his head, or because Dean had pounded a chisel into his chest, or because-

"Sam?"

Sam blinked. "Yeah, I'm good," he said. Mice. Mice were better.

Kevin frowned. "Uh-"

"It's okay, Kevin. I know you're doing what you can. You can't just use a brittle piece of weedy ash, bitter ruined slices, okay? They just don't work as well. I tried, believe me I tried. But you're really nice for pretending. I appreciate it."

Kevin raised his brows at Sam. "What am I pretending to do?" he said, fluffing Sam's pillow.

Sam smiled. "Maybe you're not one of mine."

Kevin patted his shoulder. "I'm one of yours. It's okay buddy. Let's just settle you in."

Sam swallowed, nodded. Kevin wasn't one of his, not if he could be so kind.

"Okay, you need anything else?"

"No, I'm good," Sam said again.

"Okay. Yell if you change your mind."

Sam nodded. "Sure, yeah I will."

And then Kevin was gone.

Sam was alone.

Sam was never alone.

Sam wasn't alone nearly as often as he needed to be, and then he would be beckoned into something less than real, and he'd resist as long as he could. But at their door was Amelia, and she must have been inside him, if what Dean had said about her was true, she must have been inside him and seen the ruin and wreck, and he had been hiding it. Maybe not well, but it had been _his_. And then Dean - he nearly hadn't made it to his room in time before his back broke this time. It was always a race, always a calculation; how long before I'm on the floor, before I'm a useless weapon. How much longer do I have to stay _Sam._

It was a ritual.

He got up to lock the door. He lifted his hand to the gleaming brass latch. Braced himself. His hand steady, he took a breath, he turned the latch, and the laughter rang out from behind him.

"It's so nice to be free!" Lucifer said, singsong.

Sam let his fingertips linger on the warm brass of the door handle. For a moment, he considered unlocking it, fleeing back into the relative safety of Dean's all-encompassing dedication to his well-being, recently rekindled for some reason Sam couldn't fathom. But the last thing Dean needed was further proof that Sam needed managing, that he needed mothering, that he wasn't reliable. He was _handling_ this. He had handled it.

"Oh, are we still playing this game?" Lucifer said. He basked in the dying afternoon light from Sam's window. When Sam turned to face him, he was lit in orange and red, flames over a sheet of ice covering still water that could take hours to kill you or simply preserve you for someone else to revive.

Sam didn't answer. It was just the sunlight, just the sun, here in the world bright and real.

Lucifer tsked, disappointed. "Fine, I can play if you can." He shoved off from the window and stalked around the room. "Still nothing here, huh? Still just the bare minimum to make it look bedroomish."

Sam didn't answer, only glared.

He shouldn't have given Lucifer even that. It was an error. But Sam knew how this game was played. There was no winning it, there was only how long he could hold out.

Sam schooled his face and looked away from the window, ignored the fallen archangel, sat on the bed again.

"This again?" Lucifer turned sharply from his stalking path around the room's perimeter, wheeled around with accusation on his face, disappointment. "Going to just lie down and take it?"

Sam didn't nod; he didn't need to. Lucifer was in _his_ head, he knew the answer was yes. There was no use trying to fight something that wasn't there, just as there had been no use trying to fight the terror of the cage. The only way through was to endure, and Sam had no intentions of collapsing on the floor, not again, not to have Dean have to pick him up.

"Fine then. Let's begin."

He had fought it for years at first, but he had been fighting the wrong fight. Lucifer was always going to catch him, no matter how fast or far he managed to run in a cage that changed dimensions and gravities at whim. Lucifer was always going to overpower him, always going to find the things he'd kept hidden.

Always going to carve what he wanted out of Sam somehow, always going to fashion new terrible creatures from his flesh and new terrible thoughts out of his rotting mind.

There was just no use fighting it. So Sam played a game.

And when he lost, Lucifer's triumph was proportionate to his fury, and his fury was exponential to the length of time Sam had held back even the barest whine from him.

He had been working on his longest streak yet when he'd been pulled from the cage. In three days, it would be thirteen years.

"But I always broke you, Sam," Lucifer said, suddenly at his ear. Sam jumped, but didn't respond. Lucifer's hand on his arm was cool; it burned cold, Sam could feel the skin there blacken and flake, and he clenched his jaw shut.

"You. Always. Break."

And Sam was on his back, gasping. There was a rational part of his mind that hadn't existed when he was in the cage _or are you still there?_ that reminded him that he had simply dropped himself backward onto the bed, that Lucifer had not in fact, manhandled him with those burning cold hands backward, slammed him into the mattress, sat across his hips and drew out the shining slim blade, positioned it at his side just below his ribcage.

"I'm going to have you, Sammy. Oh, I know that hasn't worked since year two, but see, now you have to go out and face your dear Dean, pretend none of this has happened, and that makes it sweet to me." Lucifer grinned, eyes heavy-lidded. He blinked then, like he'd just remembered, "Ah but first. This time, I'm going to skin you. And we're going to make a better brother for him out of your flesh, so I can keep you. Eventually I'm going to keep you."

Sam tried not to react, even a facial expression, but the fact was, that rational part of his mind shrank quickly into nothing once Lucifer touched him.

When the knife slid in under his ribcage, he kept his tongue still. When it smoothed through the soft millimeters of tissue between skin and muscle, he strained his head to the side to distance himself from it, and kept his tongue still. When Lucifer leaned over him, leaned close to breathe chill into his ear, dragged the tip of the knife from the corner of his eye down his face, he felt the hot blood drip like tears and he held his breath and clutched at the sheets and kicked his legs just once, and kept his tongue still.

And Lucifer said:

"Still so good at withholding from me... But I'm good too, dear sweet." Sam could feel him smiling against his face, freezing breath in his ear. "I'm quite proud of myself. It's so hard to keep anything from you when I want to give you everything." The tip of the knife rounded Sam's jaw, sliced down his straining neck. Lucifer's hand was steady. "Don't you want to know? Hm? What I'm so giddy to tell you?"

Lucifer rocked back to look Sam in the face, kind smile and soft words. So pleased. In love with the idea of Sam. Sam looked away when Lucifer brought up the redded knife to toy with the skin of Sam's chest, gritted his teeth to bear it.

"Want me to do the spine thing again? Hm? Come on... a thousand burning needles. Your favorite." Lucifer studied the ceiling for a moment before laughing. "No, you're right. That's mine." He leaned down over Sam again, hands were on him, the hands of the people he had made, holding him down, and Sam struggled against them because it was instinct, and _this isn't real it's not it's not you're safe you're free_ even though there was nothing he could do, he had remembered he was human decades ago and that he was _Sam Winchester_ years ago, and Sam Winchester _fights_. So he kept his tongue and he struggled against those hot hands holding him, and Lucifer stretched over him. Hands held his face forward. Lucifer's knife danced down the outside of his arm. Sam bit blood out of his lip.

"Okay, you're stubborn. That's fine. Then I'll be teacher and you be naughty student. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to make Dean a new brother, someone he can love. We'll put a nice little heart in him and everything. Not yours, no, of course not. We want him to be able to love this one. Maybe we'll nip into Purgatory and find that nice vampire, steal his. Hm?"

Sam tried to breathe; the knife point trailed a line down his arm, then back up the inside of it, down his ribcage, and he knew what came at the end. But that was nothing; that was just pain. The thing that threatened his composure - he had given up making people, giving them hearts, because they all hated him; the only heart he could give them was his own, and his own heart was full of hatred, overgrown with bitter weeds. But he had succeeded just once in making something that could have been Dean through eyes blurred with sick or grief, could have sounded like him if you were listening hard enough, could have hit like him if the anger behind those blows meant anything at all.

But that Dean had withered and Lucifer had killed him in the end. He hadn't been a real Dean after all, because Sam couldn't make anything that didn't have his own sick ruined heart. So Sam had stopped making people and he kept that Dean's skull and the little pinky toe bone he had found and he had put them into his stomach cavity when Lucifer was busy playing with Michael and he had kept them as long as he could.

But now, now Lucifer was going to find them and take them and hide them again, the only things Sam had left.

And he couldn't let Lucifer make Dean a new brother, he couldn't let it happen. Because _he was safe and it wasn't real and_ if Lucifer made Dean a new brother, it would be the real thing, not some terrible puppet like the ones Sam had managed. He'd make Dean a brother he could love, a brother forever, and there was a deficit there, because there would always be these one hundred and eighty years between them, and nothing could make up for that, and then the extra year, the one that actually mattered, the year he had spent in some kind of dream world while Dean suffered in Purgatory, and he thought maybe it would be better afterall -

Yes. Okay, make him a new brother, he certainly deserved it, a new brother with a vampire's heart, or someone else, anyone else, just not Sam's. Make him a brother he could love.

Lucifer sat back up, blood on his face. "You're a bleeder, anyone ever tell you that?"

Sam watched him with glazed eyes, face wet.

Lucifer tossed the knife to his other hand. "Oh Sam. I almost feel bad about this, because you're being so strong, but you don't know..."

Sam's breath hitched as Lucifer started in on the skin on the other side of his neck. His hands jerked at the hot sear of it. But he kept his tongue as the knife drew red down his other arm and back up it, down the side of his chest, and then quick across his throat, and he nearly choked. Lucifer tossed the knife and leaned down.

And as he dug his fingers into the cuts he had made across Sam's shoulders, dug in and grasped onto the skin there, he leaned in and said, "The longer you hold out against me, the sweeter the victory," and he surged backward and tore that skin from the front of Sam, his chest and arms, down to the muscle, and Sam's entire body spasmed, and-

-still he kept his tongue.

Lucifer tsked. "You think you've won. Fine. Just for that, we'll give him _you_. How do you like that, Sammy?"

Sam mouthed at him: _no no no_ , because his heart was no good. A new brother with someone else's heart, that was better, please God if he couldn't be with Dean himself, at least give him a new brother he could actually love.

Lucifer laughed at him, laughed at him and sorted through his organs for the right one, and he promised to break Dean again with a perfect copy of Sam, complete with ruined bitter heart _,_ and Lucifer's cold hands pushed up into him from below his rib cage, groping toward his heart, singeing everything they touched along the way with frostbite, ash and black inside of him, ruined bitter cities dying in his lungs, a slice of that heart for a perfect pretty Sammy to break up Dean into pieces, and the sick hot, cold burn, agony lancing every jostling movement, every careful caress, every whispered word of love even though _you betrayed me, Sammy_ , (Lucifer still loved him even though he had chosen some human named Dean, and what did that say about how much Dean could possibly have cared for him?), a swell to overwhelm him, overtake him, and suddenly it was a game he was going to lose again: Dean would get only Sam for a brother, a perfect copy, a ruined bitter man with a flock of terrible thoughts for a heart, and Dean would never know how much Sam loved him. _No no no-_

He always lost. He wouldn't make thirteen years.

He opened his mouth.


	4. Chapter 4

****

**Episode 904**  
" **Repression Sessions"  
Chapter Four**

"What the hell?" Dean froze at the doorway. Sam was in some kind of full blown _something_ , but it wasn't a seizure, because Sam looked aware, he was watching something in the brief moments between what looked like tortures, and Dean _knew_ what torture looked like. Head thrown back, the way humans twisted their faces away from what was happening, like that could help. The way humans grasped at anything, in Sam's case, the headboard, the sheets, in some effort to control, to ground themselves, like that could help. Dean fucking _knew_ this.

But Sam was silent, and that, Dean did not know. Humans screamed. Each and every one of them. Sam's silence rooted Dean to the spot.

Amelia was at Sam's side the instant she'd entered the room, though. She was taking his pulse, and she pulled open an eye to do her doctor thing, and she was busying herself around him while Dean was stuck standing in the doorway like a statue.

And then Sam mouthed something, maybe _no_ , and his back arched again and his head craned backward into the pillow while his feet dug into the mattress. His eyes rolled back and the smallest little choking sound weeped out of his throat, some mewling helpless sound that never should have come from his brother.

So Dean found movement, was at Sam's bedside in an instant, found a flailing hand and hung onto it for dear life.

"Sammy, Sammy come back to us, you're okay," he mumbled. He put his other hand on Sam's fevered forehead; it turned and tipped under his palm, Sam struggled for breath and twisted away from an unseen tormenter under Dean's palm. Dean wanted to hit something. Jesus.

Amelia frowned. "We have to calm him down. Who knows how long he's been experiencing this, but his heart is gonna give out if we don't get him calm. Even if it doesn't, he could hurt himself like this."

"Well how do we do that?"

"Dean-"

"No. Absolutely not."

"It's Sam's best, fastest shot at surviving."

Dean watched her for a moment, then another little choking mewl from his brother made up his mind. "Fine, do it. Just do it already."

Amelia set her mouth and took a moment before pulling off her necklace. Once again, she bent under the onslaught of whatever Sam was feeling, but she put her back under it and laid her hand on Sam's forehead, closed her eyes. Dean couldn't watch her do it, but he couldn't leave Sam's side. He hung onto Sam's hand with both of his, lowered his own forehead to Sam's clawed and grasping fingers, fucking _prayed_ for all the good that would do.

Sam stilled just a moment, then gasped in surprise. Dean thought he heard Sam say, "No, no," before falling quiet again, and his whole body relaxed.

Dean looked up at Sam's face. His eyes were open, he was watching Dean. Tear tracks drained back into his hair and his bottom lip was bloody.

"Sammy?"

Sam didn't even look like he recognized Dean. He just blinked, sad, like he'd lost something, and then the next time he blinked, he didn't open his eyes again, and his mouth fell open just a bit and he was sleeping.

Amelia sat back on her heels at Sam's bedside. Dean stood up from where he'd knelt.

"What the hell was that?" they said. Together. And looked at each other, and Dean wanted to throw up in his mouth a little.

"Well? Is he okay?" Dean demanded.

Amelia heaved breaths, watched Sam's chest rise and fall. "Mentally...? He seems okay now. I mean he's under, really under. Think 'medically induced coma.' Physically? Let's find out." She checked his pulse, lifted an eyelid. Ran her finger across his bloodied lip and tipped his mouth open a little. She ran her hands over Sam's shoulders and felt up and down his neck. She tugged a hand over to her and ran the back of her finger across his palm. She cupped his bicep and pressed her fingers against the inside of his arm, closed her eyes for a moment. Then she shrugged. "Pulse rate, blood pressure, respiration, all seem good. Color's coming back. He'll be sore. I'm a little worried about the damage he might have done to himself. His shoulder seems a little swollen. But I'd say we avoided any real damage." She moved to put her necklace back on, and Dean shook his head.

"Leave it off. I want to know immediately if something changes."

Amelia pressed her lips together for a moment. "Fine. Now I want some answers." She pushed herself to her feet.

"You're not alone," Kevin said from where he stood in the doorway. "Why didn't you _tell_ me? I've been bitching about headaches and dead moms, and meanwhile-"

"Can it, Kevin," Dean said. "We can talk later."

Kevin glanced at Amelia, and Dean could tell he was frustrated, but then Kevin frowned at Sam laying there twisted in his sheets, and sighed. "Fine. But we _are_ talking about this."

"Whatever you say, Luke. Just give me and Obi Wan here a minute."

"If anyone's Luke, it's Sam," Kevin said. "Which makes you Leia." Kevin spared them another dirty look, then came into the room, all determined and angsty and Dean remembered when he had the energy of a twenty-something. "Talk somewhere else," he said. "I'm sitting with him."

"I'm not leaving-"

"Get out, Dean. You're just gonna argue, and do you think that's good for him right now? Just get out."

Dean raised his brows in astonishment. With exaggerated care, he laid Sam's hand onto his chest and pulled the blanket from the floor where Sam had kicked it, and when he had thrown it out over his brother and smoothed it down over him, when he had brushed aside the long hair that stuck to Sam's forehead and when he had leaned down to whisper to Sam that he was just going to be downstairs and that everything was going to be okay and that Sam was safe, Dean grabbed Amelia's arm and dragged her out of the room. At the door, he turned. "Leia rocks, so. Whatever."

Goddamn kid, thinking that Dean was going to somehow upset his own brother.

"He has a point, though," Amelia said as they fled down the stairs.

"What, that I'd make a good Leia? Damn straight. She's awesome, I'm awesome-"

"That us talking near Sam is a bad idea. There's evidence that coma patients can understand or at least sense the tone of the conversation happening around them."

"Stop reading me."

"You're the one who wanted me to leave the thing off."

"He's not in a coma."

"Dean-"

Dean pulled her to a stop and spun her to face him; his grip was probably too tight around her arm. Tough. "He's gonna wake up. And he's gonna be fine."

Amelia tugged her arm out of his hand. "I hope so, Dean. I do. But you need to answer some questions-"

"I need to answer _your_ questions?"

"If you want him to get the best care I can give him? Yes."

Dean scrubbed a hand down his face. Fine. Fine, she was right. She was basically Sam's doctor, and she probably needed to know certain things. But not everything. Dean wasn't sure he could accurately talk about it himself. How was he supposed to know what was going on in Sam's head when Sam never talked to him about anything?

"Fine, whatever. You want a beer?"

"It's four in the afternoon."

Dean pinned her with a look. "So?" he dared her.

Amelia shrugged. "Just thought _someone_ should say it. What d'you have?"

So they sat down in the tidy, functional living room with a couple of beers and were quiet for a long moment, processing. Then Dean said:

"So what the hell _was_ that?"

Amelia shrugged. "That's what I'd like to know. It wasn't a seizure, that's for sure. How long did you say he's been awake?"

"Eight days or so, if he's been honest. Up to ten if he hasn't."

"That's... You realize that's not normal, right? I mean, you realize how _dangerous_ that is? It's almost impossible for a human being to die from lack of sleep. Part of the brain shuts down to preserve itself, even if it looks like the person is fully alert. But Sam? He was awake, one-hundred-percent awake."

"This isn't the first time," Dean said. She probably needed to know that. "One other time this happened. He was awake for almost ten days before snapping out of it."

"You don't just snap out of something like this, Dean-"

"We had help, okay? He was admitted to a hospital, they were taking care of him, and I found... a healer. Like our kind of healer." Dean took a long pull from his bottle. "It was a close call, closer than- We got him, though. He was fine."

"He was admitted? And he didn't exhibit behavior like what we just saw?"

Dean shook his head. "No. Hallucinations, but nothing so... uh. Physical." _Physical_ sounded like such an innocent word when what he really meant was _no, Sam was never tortured nearly into heart failure by this the last time; no, Lucifer never made him relive cage trauma last time. No, or at least, Sam was better at hiding it._ Shit.

Amelia nodded. "They kept him on some pretty strong drugs, I imagine. Maybe suppressed this from happening."

Dean nodded. If that was the case, maybe he'd feel better about leaving Sam alone in an institution to hunt down a healer last time. He waited a moment, checked - nope, didn't feel better.

"A healer worked before-"

"Tried that already. Apparently it was a one-time deal." Dean looked at her, smiled unhappily. "Apparently, you're our only hope, Ms. Kenobi."

Amelia smiled back, smaller but more sincere. "That's Doctor Kenobi to you. And I _am_ going to help him, Dean. I swear."

Dean's smile faded. Dammit, why did she have to look so serious and genuine. "So when's he gonna wake up?"

"Probably soon. I pushed him down pretty hard, but he's a fighter. When he-" She stopped herself, looked at Dean. Shook her head. "This isn't like before, Dean. What _happened_?"

"I don't wanna talk about it-"

"I think we're past caring about your comfort level-"

"No," Dean said. "I mean. It's not mine to talk about." Well, that sounded lame. Psychobabble-y. She was rubbing off on him, maybe. "You'll have to ask him."

But Amelia smiled at him. Okay, sure. Dean had spoken her language, that worked. Amelia nodded like she approved of his response. "Okay. I will."

"It was bad," Dean warned. "He might not wanna talk-"

"And that'll be okay. But Dean. I don't want to hear another outburst like the one I heard on your doorstep. You have to control yourself, at least for now."

"Sam isn't a little kid, _doctor_. He's not some frail-"

"So he's been defending himself, then?" She waited for him to reply, and when he didn't, she said, "There's no way that was the first fight like that you've had. He's been fighting back?"

Dean frowned at her. She didn't know them; she didn't know _Sam_ , and what they had gone through together? She had no idea, the things Sam had done. Indefensible things. Sam wasn't stupid, he'd stopped trying to defend his traitorous actions long ago.

"So that's a no, then," she said. "And you think that's normal for Sam. Even if you believe you're in the right, that _Sam_ believes you're in the right, you think it's normal for Sam to just roll over?"

"You don't know us," Dean growled. "You got the 'shining' or whatever and you think that means you know what's going on here, but you have no idea. Sam owns up to the crap he's done, okay?"

"Then why did your anxiety just spike? Why do you feel so unsure? You don't know that what you're saying is true. In fact, you know it isn't."

"Yeah it is. Sam takes responsibility-"

"Too much, though. Right? There's a lot of guilt in there, Dean."

"Tell me about it. He might as well be Catholic-"

"I'm not talking about Sam."

Dean stared. "Stop reading me. I mean it."

Amelia shrugged. "Then stop emoting like a twelve year old girl."

Dean sank back into the couch, sullen and nursing his beer. Sam took responsibility for his actions, okay? He was a fucking adult, and a good man, and that meant Sam tried to make right whatever crap he did, every time. And yeah, okay, he tended to take on crap they should have shared. Dean did tell him at least once that the apocalypse thing was on both of them. And okay, maybe he could have said it a couple more times, maybe not thrown it back at him at that church where he tried to kill himself. Sure.

"I think you should talk to him about your time apart," Amelia said. "I only got a brief look, but there was this huge well of darkness when he looked at you, right before he passed out upstairs. I think it's probably about that."

Dean nodded absently. "He knows he should have looked for me."

"Dean. I told you, he couldn't."

"Yeah, and why is that again? Because you were screwing with his head?"

"Half-right, remember?"

"Yeah, right. He went all catatonic because his brother was gone. By the way, not the first time that's happened, so pardon me if that whole story's a little hard for me to believe."

"Dean." Amelia looked back through the war room and up, like she could watch Sam from afar. She probably could, after a fashion. She chewed on her lip like she was deciding something. "This is personal and I probably shouldn't tell you. But your attitude-"

"Yeah, _my attitude_ , let's blame all this on that."

"It's damaging to my patient."

"Me damage _Sam_? I _protect_ that kid, I gave my _life_ for that kid-"

"Let me tell you this first, and then you can decide whether there's something in the way you interact with him that should change."

Dean thought about that lakeside church and that motel room in Boston, about a graveyard where Sam threw himself into eternity, about a mysterious never-ending Tuesday Sam still wouldn't talk about. About the countless times Dean had noticed Sam retreating, Sam claiming to be fine when he secretly wanted to talk, desperately to talk, to fix things, both before and especially after Dean's little trip into an alternate past where Sam didn't know him well enough to shut down. The litany of failures Dean found so easy to remember, because he was memorizing them himself every day, every time something happened, something was added to the list. Times Dean had failed Sam, failed to talk to him in time. Failed to call him in time to stop Sam from killing Lilith, or worse, failed to say the right thing in that message to convince Sam that he was sorry, that he had Sam's back, that he needed Sam, that they needed to do it together. Failed to pass that goddamned test.

Dean frowned. "Fine. I'm listening."

* * *

"Okay," Cas said, looking at his phone. "Charlie's coming."

Crowley checked her name off. "Plus one?"

"Yes. Someone named Alice."

"Oooh, I do love how the times have changed," Crowley said, delighted.

"You mean, the homosexuality."

"It's wonderful, isn't it?"

Cas watched him. "If you're finding pleasure in the sins of these people, I feel I must tell you that God never cared about this supposed transgression."

Crowley sighed, dramatic. "We've gone _over_ this, dovey. I'm not that guy any more. It's been like at least two weeks."

"Two weeks is hardly a large amount of time in the grand-"

"It's the longest amount of time," Crowley said, suddenly serious. "The longest. And you should understand how quickly it goes, that surety of your own actions. For you, the swipe of a blade. For me, eight hours of enduring the purest blood invading my every cell, my entire being, washing away any sense of certainty."

Cas was quiet a moment. "So it isn't about the homosexuality?"

Crowley grinned. "Oh, it is. This is a freer world than the one I grew up in, darling. So much fun to be had, right out where everyone can see it."

Cas watched him. Crowley _had_ changed, and he hadn't. It was troubling, difficult to understand. But he supposed he understood better than most others, what the demon king might be feeling. "It's your turn," he reminded.

Crowley's grin turned false. He resettled himself where he stood, swallowed nervously. These things, Cas decoded to mean _I have dreaded this moment, I have pretended it would never happen, I have clung to fool's hope that it might be forgotten. But this is my lot, a thing I made myself._

"Right."

Crowley slipped his phone out of his pocket. Pressed through menus to find the number. Held the phone up to his ear. Cas could hear it ringing, could almost sense Crowley's heavy reluctance. And then it picked up.

"Yes," Crowley said, "Jody. It's Rodrick. Yes, it's been a little while. No, I'm sorry I didn't call. After what happened, I guess I... No, you're absolutely right." Crowley closed his eyes; Cas could hear her voice, a little raised, a lot indignant. "Listen, love," Crowley said softly, cutting her off. "Yell at me all you like, later. I've fallen in with some people you know, Sam and Dean Winchester." He listened for her response. Cas could hear nothing from her end of the line. "Hello? Jody?" The soft noise on the other end was worried. "No, nothing like - I'll tell you all about it - The point. _Darling,_ the point is that we're having a birthday party- Sam's. I'm calling to - would you please come? These boys haven't got much family, I understand." Crowley smiled at her response, met Cas' eye and stuck one thumb into the air. "No no, it's a surprise. Oh sure, bring whatever you like. God knows how they manage to survive off what Dean brings home. I _know_ , isn't that the truth? God. Yes, all right. A week from today. I'll text you the address. Oh, Jody. I'm - I'm so sorry. Yes, for... for not calling you. Yes. Good-bye."

He hung up. Blew out a breath. "Well, Jody's in," he said brightly.

Cas smiled. "Plus one?"

Crowley grinned. "Wouldn't you know, I forgot to ask."

* * *

"Fine," Dean said, "I'm listening."

"I don't know how the two of you usually communicate, but I'm guessing from your disbelief that it's not at the top of your priorities to tell each other your innermost thoughts and feelings."

There was a hint of sarcasm there, and Dean smiled in spite of himself and thought about how after thirty years of knowing the kid, he'd only just learned how to pass the test, and he'd still failed. "Not usually, no."

"Then this may be a surprise to you, or it may not. In our time together, he didn't tell me any of his past; he thought I was just a normal woman and maybe he was protecting me. Either way, I have no idea what events might have triggered this, but... when I felt through him back then..."

"Dammit, just spit it out already."

She leaned forward, lowered her voice. Against his very strong desire to keep his distance, Dean glanced around the room and leaned in as well. She opened her mouth, then shook her head - Dean could have throttled her for drawing it out like she was. But then she looked at him, brows together, and Dean could see she cared for Sam, she worried for Sam, that even though it had come at a strange, deceitful angle, she _loved_ Sam.

"Sam was... I hate to use this word. But the only thing I can say to describe him when I found him is... _broken_. I don't mean angsty, emo, whatever the kids are doing these days. I mean. I sat him down and read him and he was..." She sucked her top lip in thought. "Imagine a beautiful vase-"

"Sam's a vase?" Dean said, scoffing to hide his mounting worry.

"Just go with me here," she commanded. She waited for Dean to nod with her lips pressed together in expectation. He nodded. "This vase is intricate and well-constructed, made of the most indestructible stuff in existence. No sledgehammer can destroy this vase. No cold or heat or weight can crack it.

"Now imagine the force it would take, the violence it would take to scrape the protective enamel from the surface of that vase made of this indestructible stuff, to hammer into it over and over, to finally forge cracks in it deep enough that the next blow will shatter it. And it shatters.

"This indestructible thing, scraped free of anything protecting it, a thing that should have held firm against any force on earth, shattered. Got it?"

Dean nodded.

"Now imagine it's been put back together with superglue. It looks great. From most angles, you can't even tell it's not the same vase it once was. And it holds water and roses now, just as it used to, and it shines in the sunlight and you can put the weight of the world on top of it and it's fine. But one solid, hefty blow to its most vulnerable crack, and it shatters again. It's gone again."

Dean frowned as her metaphor took its time sinking in. Sam liked to say he was a genius, but this high school English crap was out of his wheelhouse. "So... Sam's this vase, and... what?"

Amelia fixed him with a patient look and waited for him to put it all together himself.

"And when I left - disappeared, whatever. I was the sledgehammer? And now he's all superglued back together?"

"Not exactly. From what I could tell, this vase has been broken for years. You were a sledgehammer, but not the original one. He'd been put back together before you left, I think. When you... 'disappeared, whatever' - that was the one solid blow that took the whole thing down again. What I'm saying is that maybe the Sam you knew once would have dropped everything to find you, would have been able to pull himself together and hunt you down. But that Sam up there-" She nodded up toward Sam's door. "Something is-"

"It's his soul," Dean realized.

"I suppose that's a word for it. I prefer 'psyche' myself-"

"No. It's his soul. For real. He-" Dean stopped, looked at her. "Souls are supposed to be indestructible, but Sammy, he... his got... busted."

"His _soul_?"

"Cas said there was no healing it. I should have known known something like this would happen. Goddammit."

"Dean-" And she had the audacity to put her hand on his arm. "It's not your fault. You couldn't help what happened to you, anymore than Sam could help his reaction to it. You have to stop blaming yourself. The Sam I came to know, the Sam trapped under the surface of his grief, that Sam would have stopped at nothing to find you. Your instincts about him aren't wrong. It just wasn't possible for him to -" She stopped herself. _Again_.

"What," he said.

She shook her head. "I've given you as much of a breakdown of Sam's situation as I am willing to. Everything else, you'll have to ask him."

"Doctor-patient confidentiality thing, huh?"

"Yep."

"You got a real fuzzy line, there doc."

"I know. But you had to know enough to get over this hump. Your attitude-"

"Yeah, yeah. My attitude."

"If you don't mind - how did he bust his soul?"

Dean smiled beatifically. "I've told you as much as I'm willing to tell you. It's a brother-brother confidentiality thing."

"Cute."

A door clicked upstairs. Dean and Amelia went out into the war room to see Sam barely upright in his darkened doorway off the balcony, leaning on Kevin.

"So much for your early warning system," Dean growled.

* * *

Kevin slumped onto the side of Sam's bed once Dean and Amelia had left. He looked around the room, interlaced his fingers and pulled them apart and laced them again. He looked at Sam, out cold.

"You need a chair, dude. And like, a dresser. And like... pictures or something."

Sam didn't respond.

"Listen, I talked to Crowley like you said, and he sort of accidentally told me about your... thing, and I just wanted to say... I guess. I'm sorry. For all the crap you've gone through or whatever. He told me about that cage, about Lucifer who's apparently real. About you coming back after like two hundred years and being crazy and everything. What Cas did to you. I mean, I thought you were just- Well. Anyway, I get it now. And on behalf of the whole world, I just want to say thank you."

Kevin watched Sam breathe there, flushed with fever, thinner than that picture Dean had put up in his room of the two of them, and there was already blood on Sam's pillow. Kevin had just washed these pillowcases, and there was already blood on Sam's pillow. Kevin shook his head.

"I think I figured out what you meant though. About forgiving him. I think wanting to be forgiven counts for something, you know? He _cried_ , dude. Like... how do you say screw you to that?" Kevin shrugged at Sam's unresponsive body. "I mean, okay. Pretty easily, I guess. He did kill my mom, and my girlfriend, and - But, anyway my point is, I thought about what you said, and when he's right there telling me that he doesn't know how to be forgiven, it's kinda easier to see how he was human once, how he isn't that same guy who kidnapped me and cut off my finger and everything." He paused, narrowed his eyes. "Okay, no, I still kind of hate him, but what I'm saying is that I get how I can hate him and still accept that he's trying to be a different guy. Like, I was thinking about it, and I was thinking about what happened to you, and I understand how he was _made_ into what he is. And who knows what he did in life that deserved that, you know? Like, what if someone assumed you deserved what happened to you just because they knew you'd gone to hell?"

Sam coughed in his sleep, lightly and then a bit harder; Kevin thought he'd wake up. But Sam settled again, and there was new copper on his pillowcase and Kevin wrinkled his nose at it. There weren't even kleenexes in here, a huge oversight when you've put together a room specifically for a guy who can't keep his blood in his body. Kevin gave up and stared at his hands.

"Hey, you said you did something hell-worthy before. But from what I heard, you basically saved everyone after trying to save everyone the first time turned out to be a big trick anyone could have fallen for. So. When you wake up, maybe you'll remember someone said thank you."

He looked at Sam. No response. Kevin sighed. "Listen, I'm going to bail on finding out what went wrong with the final trial, okay? I've decided, and you don't get a say, and if you think you do, I'll sic Dean on you. You've already given enough for this rock."

Even evoking big brother didn't get a response.

Kevin frowned. Sam _had_ given enough, more than enough- Oh, holy crap. It dawned on him like the answer to a physics problem he'd been wading through, like sudden understanding of Schubert's _Erlkonig_ for cello - or maybe he was just the goddamn _prophet_ so this came naturally to him - "Crap. I know what happened." Crap crap crap! Obviously! He put his hand on Sam's shoulder, gave it just a little shake. "Sam, wake up, dude. I know what happened."

There might have been a sound.

"Sam?" Kevin frowned, peered closer. Sam still looked asleep, but his eyebrows were drawn together just slightly. He gave Sam another little shake. "Come on."

Sam coughed again, winced at the motion. His eyes opened just a little. "Kevin-" He coughed again, tried to sit up. Kevin helped him, hastily shoved a pillow behind him. The guy looked around the room like he didn't remember how he got there. Kevin snapped his fingers in front of Sam's face to get his attention.

"I think I know why the trials didn't work."

"What?"

"Tell me again what you said before, about what Naomi said or whatever."

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, looked around the room. "Where's Dean-"

"Downstairs. Focus, okay?"

"Uhm." He coughed again, pulled his arm out of the blankets to cover his mouth. "Dean said Naomi said the trials were supposed to kill-"

"Yeah yeah, _and_?"

"They were supposed to be the ultimate sacrifice." Sam looked at his palm, frowned at the blood there like he was disappointed, but Kevin grinned at him.

"Come on, don't you get it?" Kevin said, springing from Sam's bedside. "Death isn't the 'ultimate sacrifice!' Not for _you_ , man! You've been to _hell_ , you've been tortured for centuries. _Death_ is supposed to be the big sacrifice after that? No way-!"

Sam was staring. Kevin cut himself off, only just realizing what he'd said, and he rushed back to Sam, saying, "Dude, I'm sorry, I didn't think. I just mean, after what you've done, death is like no big deal, right?"

But Sam didn't seem too upset, just a little surprised, maybe groggy. He raised his brows in consideration. "You might actually be right." He lifted an arm for assistance. Kevin helped him sit up, since he didn't seem to be speaking gibberish or talking about the weird mice or collapsing civilizations in his ribcage like before.

"I'm totally right. I know it. God didn't count on someone like you. This is awesome. Dean's going to be thrilled. Even if we do do the third trial now, it won't cost your life."

Sam coughed into his hand. "Yeah... where is he again?"

"Downstairs with that Amelia chick. I threw them out because they're assholes."

Sam chuckled. "I totally believe that." Then he sighed and looked at the windows, maybe judging how long he'd been out? There also weren't any clocks in this room. Kevin rolled his eyes. Dean might have cared a lot about Sam having a good room, but he wasn't exactly detail-oriented. "Hey, Kevin," Sam said, and he looked down at the blanket. Played with it a little.

"Uh, yeah?"

"Do I seem... like myself? To you?"

Kevin shrugged. "I guess. Maybe a little saner, but you know, you've only been _really_ crazy for like a week. Dude, the stuff you said-"

"But I seem like..." He was looking at Kevin, and Kevin wished he knew what Sam was looking for, because he didn't apparently find it and cut himself off from whatever he was trying to ask. "Nevermind. Can you help me up? I need to tell Dean something."

"Something like how your prophet is super awesome and figured out that you don't have to die for the third trial?"

"Something like that."

So Kevin stood Sam up and helped him into the bathroom where he brushed his teeth - like really this guy brushed his teeth like twelve times a day. And he put his hands through his hair but he didn't seem to care if it worked, and then he ran his hands over his clothes and seemed to find them acceptable, and they started down the stairs.

Dean and Amelia met them halfway up, where Dean took over helping Sam down the stairs while Kevin and Amelia hovered, and then they all collapsed in the living room where Sam could more comfortably recline in the couch cushions, leaned up against the arm. Dean sat next to him, not so secretly sitting between Sam and everyone else. Kevin perched on the edge of the armchair seat, tapping his heel on the floor.

"You wanna tell them?" he said to Sam.

Sam looked at him. "Uhm. You go ahead." He looked uncomfortable sitting so close to Dean. He watched Dean like Dean was some creature Sam had never seen. Dean looked like he was trying really hard to be upbeat, patting Sam on the knee like three times as often as necessary. So maybe he really _was_ a creature Sam had never seen.

"Okay," Kevin said, leaning forward. "I think I figured out why the third trial didn't work."

"Third trial?" Amelia said.

Kevin gave her a look, then shook his head at Dean. "To close the demon gate. What the hell have you been talking about down here?"

"I'll explain it later," Dean said, "Just spit it out, Kevin."

"It was supposed to kill him, right, but not just kill him. It was supposed to be his ultimate sacrifice."

Dean didn't look enlightened. Sam was peering at him, maybe for his reaction. Like Dean wouldn't be overjoyed - once he understood the deal, anyway.

"Get it?" Kevin said. "The whole hell thing? Sam's already done way worse than die! Dying can't possibly be his ultimate sacrifice."

Dean turned to Sam with a look of disgust. "Is that true? You don't care about dying?"

Sam shrugged with one shoulder. "That's not Kevin's point-"

"I thought that was some cry for help thing, not like an actual... What the hell, Sam?"

"Like, a play for attention?" Sam said. He seemed to consider it. "I don't know. I guess-"

Kevin took over. "If he died, he'd go to heaven, Dean. After what _he's_ done, heaven is basically ... well. It's heaven."

"Thanks, Mr. Mensa, I know what heaven is."

"There's something else," Sam said.

Kevin looked at him, surprised. This was the big news. The trials thing, that was the big news.

Dean threw his hands up. "Great, 'something else' he says. This oughta be good."

"Dean," Amelia warned.

"It's okay," Sam said. He kinda smiled. "He's right to expect bad news when it comes to Sam."

Dean stared at him. Kevin frowned.

"Uh," Kevin said. "You know _you're_ Sam, right?"

Sam smiled a little sheepishly, looked from Dean to Amelia and Kevin. "I don't know how to sugarcoat this," he said. He shrugged. "So I'll just say it, I guess. Uhm. Dean. I'm not even sure this will matter to you, but."

Dean's face shifted, from confused to downright scary; Kevin folded himself up in the armchair and looked back at Sam, _not good not good_ alarms blaring. Dean narrowed his eyes at Sam. "Spit it out already, Sammy."

Sam pressed his lips together in a sympathetic little smile. "I'm not your brother," he said. "Sam's gone."


	5. Chapter 5

 

**Episode 904**  
" **Repression Sessions"  
Chapter Five**

Sam pressed his lips together in a sympathetic little smile. "I'm not your brother," he said. "Sam's gone."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Shut up, Kevin," Dean said, edging away from Sam. "You and Amelia get out of here. Let me deal with this."

Kevin unfolded from his chair and got up warily, watching Dean and Sam. "That's Sam, man. I was with him the whole time."

"Just do it, Kevin."

"Go ahead, Kevin," Sam said. "It's okay."

Amelia stood. "I'm not going anywhere-"

Dean turned to her. "You and me are gonna have words later. But right now, I'm kinda thinking we have a serious problem, and you and Kevin need to be somewhere else, like _yesterday_. Now scram." She didn't move, and Dean kinda saw what Sam must have seen in her, so he relented and said, "Listen, this is for your safety-"

"Safety-"

"Because I'm not Sam," Sam said. "I mean, I'm not going to hurt anyone, but Dean doesn't know that. You should probably just go. It's fine."

Kevin tugged at Amelia's arm and together they left the living room, although Dean was aware they were hovering just out of sight, well within hearing range. Dean got up from the couch and stalked the room.

Sam raised his brows, looked a little sad maybe that Dean didn't trust him, couldn't even sit near him, but he didn't try to stop him either. He offered an arm. "Go ahead and test me, if you want. But I'm human. Basically."

Dean frowned. "Okay. Hang on. You're not Sam?"

"Nope. Sorry."

"But you have his body."

"Well, yeah-"

"So you're... what? Possessing him somehow?"

"No. Like I'm trying to say, Sam is gone. I'm not him."

"Listen-"

"Dean." Sam stood to meet him on his level, earnest. "I'm sorry. I'll help you find him, okay? I'm taking a huge risk here. He didn't think I'd tell you any of this. And you know, my instinct was to keep it to myself, try to figure it out without you having to know. Because, that's Sam. I have all of his memories, all of them. So I know what he'd do in this situation. But the only weapon, the only way to fight back - we have to break the rules, even our own rules. We have to control our own reactions. That's all there is. So, I'm Sam, right, and all I can do is control my _own_ reactions and break the rules."

Dean stared.

"Anyway, he didn't think I'd tell you. So he won't know we're coming. We can still find Sam."

Dean put his hands out, to steady himself. To try to physically get a handle on what the hell- because what the _hell_? "You're not Sam, but you are."

"Yeah." Sam's dumb face looking at him with brows together, earnest as fuck just like he was Dean's brother.

"How do you _know_ you're not Sam?"

Sam closed his mouth, pressed it together into a line of sympathy and sadness. "Dean, I. Just trust me, okay?"

"Trust you?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Right, not our strong suit-"

" _Sam_ , I trust. You're not him, apparently, so no. I need a good answer here."

Sam blew out a breath. "Fine. Don't take this the wrong way. But. I don't... I have all of Sam's memories, okay? And so I know what it's supposed to feel like, but. It's like I read it in a book. I don't..." He shrugged. "The last memories I have of his are just this panic that you might never know how much he loves you. And I don't feel that."

"Oh... kay?"

"That's how I know, Dean. If I was Sam - I mean. I'm sorry, Dean. I don't love you."

Dean felt it like a suckerpunch. Sure, they'd fought, argued, disagreed on some fundamental things. Sure Sam had left, left a lot, and Dean had called him on it and vented some other shit and apparently he was supposed to be more careful about that, or Death would probably come and kick his ass, but - Dean took a moment, because suddenly he felt dizzy, a little buzzed from adrenaline, and his legs felt weak or heavy and he steadied himself on the back of the chair Kevin had been sitting in to get his feet back under him, to get his brain working like a hunter again.

Sam didn't _love_ him? _This_ Sam didn't love him, so it wasn't Sam, that was Sam's story. Or... it _was_ Sam, but Sam couldn't love him?

"What _do_ you feel?" Dean said, testing a theory. This fake-Sam hadn't gotten upset about the normal Sam crap - he'd even smiled a little.

"Uhm... I feel sorry? For you? And kind of disappointed. Apparently, I'm-" He coughed, _hard_. Displayed his bloodied palm with a long-suffering annoyed look. "Dying."

"Sam's not dying," Dean said. "You, you're not dying. But just so I can hear it one more time. You feel what, sad?"

Sam blinked at Dean. "Wait. You don't think-"

Dean shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first time Sam was here without being _here_."

Sam shook his head. "No, I'm definitely all here. I'm not missing anything. I got empathy and everything. I just don't... uh. Feel things as strongly as he did, I guess. I mean, I'm brand-new. All these memories with their emotional attachments, they're someone else's story. But I do have a soul." Sam smiled, small. "I'm a perfect copy, right down to the heart."

"A copy-"

"My guess is that your Sam is in the cage. With Lucifer."

Dean frowned. He was trying hard not to jump to conclusions, but the terrible thought had entered his mind and he couldn't get rid of it; this idea that Sam had been in the cage this whole time, and they'd been dealing with a possibly faulty, possibly just-now-factory-reset _copy_ , sent upstairs to Dean to keep him from looking for more ways to spring Sam.

Dean sank back onto the couch.

Sam followed his cue, looking sympathetic. Well, that was one mark in the positive for this Sam having a soul, at least.

Shit. "No, this is bullshit. One soul per person, okay? Lucifer couldn't just craft that out of nothing-"

"Not out of nothing, Dean," Sam said gently. His big Sam-eyes looked just like the real thing. "He's got raw materials down there. He's got a big soul to work from. Maybe that's enough. Maybe it's enough that I'm identical. We can make new memories, I'm sure I'll love you just like he did. I mean, the real Sam managed to love you every time. If I have a soul, a part of Sam's soul, maybe, could that be enough for you?"

Dean stared. This was crazy talk. Sam twisted his mouth up in thought, considering him, and when he didn't answer, he sighed heavy.

"Or no, probably not." Sam smiled that thin understanding smile. "You're right. We should try to find him. That's the reason I even told you about me. So we could find him."

Crazy talk.

Dean shook his head. "I gotta do some stuff before I can try to process this." And Sam held his arm out again, and Dean did all the tests, because that should have been step one when someone wearing Sam's body said he wasn't Sam, that Sam was gone.

But Sam passed all the tests, and he answered all the questions, all the trivia they used to test each other, and some they had never agreed on but Dean thought Sam should know.

"Satisfied?" Sam said.

"Not even a little," Dean growled. "You're comin' with me."

Sam, still unsteady on his feet, struggled to keep himself upright as Dean man-handled him down to the dungeon. Kevin and Amelia followed in their wake.

"Dean," Sam said. "Hold up-" When he saw the dungeon, he pulled back sharply. "I'm not a demon, man. This is ridiculous. I'm trying to _help_ you-"

"Save it. If you're not Sam, I'm not interested in entertaining your little theories."

"I took a risk telling you-"

"Oh yeah? What'd you risk then?"

Sam stared. "If he... If he found out, he'd..."

"Right." Dean shoved Sam into the dungeon. Sam fell to the floor, coughed, coughed a lot, and Dean grimaced. Fuck. Fuck. Dean shut the door.

"Dean, what are you doing?" Kevin asked. "You can't leave him in there."

"Dean," Sam called. "I'm trying to help you! I swear."

"Kevin, if he's not Sam, we have to take precautions. That's just the way it is. I don't like it either."

"I shouldn't have told you," Sam called from the cell. He'd dragged himself up, curled his fingers around the bars in the little opening. "I should have trusted Sam's instincts!" Another coughing fit.

"I don't like this, Dean," Amelia said.

"Oh, you're still here?" Dean led the charge out of the dusty hidden room, leaving behind the hacking cough, the whining cry that accused him of being everything Sam's memory insisted he was. Someone Sam couldn't trust with hard truths. The words beat on him and he weathered them only by putting himself on some kind of reptilian auto-pilot and remembering any of a dozen times Sam hadn't been Sam to combat the approaching full-on psychotic break, and Sam's voice in his head begging him to kill him when he thought he might end up hurting someone, and Sam wouldn't want Dean to take any chances. Sam wouldn't want Dean to take any risks, and that was more important than the likelihood Dean wouldn't come out the other end of this with his sanity intact.

Amelia tugged them to a stop. "This isn't right."

Dean whirled around, grabbed her by the arm. "You're damn straight it isn't right. Take that thing off and read that guy right now, where he can't see us or talk to us or influence us. Do it."

Amelia pulled herself out of his grip. "I'm not wearing it, Dean. I haven't been this whole time."

"So you knew-"

"No. Dean, there's _nothing_. I got you, this kid-"

"Kevin. Nice to meet you."

"But from Sam? Just reactive response-"

"What?"

"He's sympathetic when something happens, he's annoyed or eager, but it fades to nothing almost immediately. When he's not directly responding to something that's happened, there's just nothing there." She shrugged. "There should _be_ something."

Dean felt sick. "That's really not Sam?"

"Dean-"

He covered his mouth, sagged against the wall. They were down corridors, up one set of stairs, and Dean could still hear Sam yelling for him, begging to be let out, coughing that wracking, thick cough that the dust of the dungeon couldn't be helping. Dean couldn't even remember getting this far away.

"Dean," Amelia said again. "Come on. You need to sit."

"I'm fine."

"You're really really not."

"Sam's - in the cage and he's been there for so long there's just no hope for him. There's just no hope. And what do I do? Just live with this guy and pretend it's Sam? Do like this copy says and hope it's enough? I can't. I can't."

"Dean, slow down-"

"But I can't kill him. He looks just like, and he's so sincere, like Sam before all of this, like Sam before I- I can't do it. I can't."

"Dean, come on," Amelia said, and when Dean looked up at her, it was because she was bent over him and he was on the floor. She pressed gently at the back of his head and it went with her, was guided by her hand without any input on Dean's part, to rest between his knees which were bent up, hugged to his chest. In his mouth, he tasted vomit. And his little brother's voice banged on him from afar, from memory: _You can't do this! I'm trying to help you! I knew I shouldn't have trusted you! I should have known better than to think you'd even try to look for Sam!_

No. No, he'd look for Sam. If this look-alike had gotten out of the cage, Dean could sure as hell get in. He just needed to find out how to do it.

* * *

"Streamers?"

Crowley looked at the package appraisingly. "I'm torn. On the one hand, Moose probably hasn't had a proper birthday party in, _ever_. On the other, it's incredibly tacky."

Cas frowned at his little basket of items. "I just want this to be fun. They have both been so downtrodden. I wish to bring joy to them. Colorful things, whimsical streamers, balloons. Items of delight."

"Hi! Can I help y'all?"

Cas looked up at the girl. She wore the signature blue of the decorative celebration supplies retail establishment, and her eyes were dark brown and she had bright golden hair and she smiled like she enjoyed her job.

"Uh. Yes. I. We're having a party. For a friend. He's a male."

"Uh..."

"What he means," Crowley said, "is that our friend has been through some tough times and we'd like to make this birthday party as ... cheerful as possible."

She eyed the items in Cas' basket and said, "So, about how old is your friend?"

"Thirty-one, apparently," Crowley said. "I tried to get him a big boy party, but Cas here is determined to throw a traditional shindig, balloons and all."

She laughed. "Grown ups can like balloons. Let's see if I can help you out."

Her name was Maggie, and Cas learned that she enjoyed making people happy. She was working at the Party!Mart only part-time during a temporary slump in her business, throwing parties professionally, and by the time they'd reached the paper plates aisle, three arguments with Crowley over colors and thirty minutes later, she had offered to handle Sam's party for free.

It may have had something to do with how often Cas and Crowley brought him up, how often Crowley mentioned Sam's physique or flowing hair. Cas wondered if Crowley had done it on purpose, attempting to cultivate an opportunity for Sam to get a "good lay." But Maggie smiled at Crowley nicely when he made his comments and only lit up truly when Cas said things like, "Sam saved my life," or "Sam convinced me I could be forgiven," or "Sam laughs at my jokes even when I'm certain he doesn't think they're funny."

And by the end of their shopping trip, they had a full cart and Maggie's number and she had been invited to a lonely bunker just beyond the edge of town for a birthday party she was planning for free.

So Cas felt good when he shouldered through the door with bags hanging from his arms. They'd done some kind of mix. Lots of balloons to blow up, but they were more sedate colors of burgandy and navy and dark green and silver. Streamers, but in similar muted colors, matching paper dishware, although Cas was certain the bunker kitchen had enough glassware for the meagre guest list they'd been able to think up. Maggie had convinced them that a nice banner would be celebratory but could still be classy, and she was going to bring it over the morning of the party. And Cas had gotten party favors for everyone. He turned to let Crowley in past the devil's trap, and as Crowley stepped through it, they froze.

A sound. A yell? From... Kevin's room. Crowley trailed Cas through the war room toward the closet Kevin had claimed as a bedroom, where the yelling had been joined by the sound of a fist pounding on the door from the inside of the room. In front of the door was a heavy trunk.

Crowley shoved the trunk out of the way and threw the door open. Behind it stood Kevin, disheveled, frantic, with a red mark on his face and flush creeping up his neck. He said:

"He's crazy! We have to do something."

From somewhere deep within the maze of the bunker's lower levels, a voice cried out, a primal cry of anger.

* * *

Dean had demanded she be present, so Amelia watched as this broken man she had been certain was on the edge of some precipice just ten minutes ago readied himself to re-enter the dungeon.

He scared her now; he'd shoved Kevin into a closet and barred the door without a word. When he'd turned to her, his pupils were blown wide and it was like he barely registered she was a person. Just grabbed her arm and dragged her back down to the area that looked like a dungeon. And Amelia had worked with hunters; she knew there were secret places she was better off not thinking about, places demons could safely be kept or worse creatures, but she hadn't seen a place with a straight-up dungeon.

And he'd told her to pay attention to Sam, to tell him if Sam was lying or not, and when she said she might not be able to sense anything because the landscape of Sam's emotions was little more than a flatline on her super-sensitized scale, he shoved her into the corner of the dungeon where she watched him advance on his brother.

Sam had been rattling the bars of his cell the whole time they were gone, but he'd been barely upright when Dean had tossed him to the floor; fifteen minutes later, Sam was spent, and he backed away from the door at speed when he saw Dean ready to kick the thing in. And now he was pressed against the far wall, chest heaving as he watched Dean warily.

"Where is my brother?"

"I don't know," Sam said. "Maybe the cage-"

Sam's head hit the back wall; Dean's hand was around his throat. Sam didn't fight back, but only scrabbled a little at the fingers closing off his airway. He made a shape with his mouth, and Dean let up a little so he could say, "I'll help you find him."

"Yeah. Yeah you _are_ gonna help." Dean let him go and Sam dropped to the floor, coughing. Blood flecked onto his hand and Amelia started forward to tend to him, but Dean put a hand out to stop her. Dean crouched. "All right, sit up." Sam did. "You and me are gonna have a talk."

Sam wheezed and leaned back against the wall. "Sure," he said between breaths. "You seem perfectly reasonable."

Dean smiled. It was a strange thing, bent up at the corners, but when they said fake smiles didn't reach the eyes, they apparently weren't talking about the smile on Dean's face. It sat like a threat there, and it pressed up against the bottoms of his eyes so they glinted with menace, and his eyebrows ghosted upward like he was so innocent and his whole face was twisted in some kind of madness. She tried to get a read off _him_ , but where she expected anger and fear, she got cold, she got determination, she got desire.

"I'm reasonable," Dean said. "Just a chat."

"Fine." Sam spat blood onto the floor. "What do you want to know?"

"You got out of the cage. I need to know how to get into it."

Sam frowned. "I just woke up upstairs. I don't know anything about the cage."

"I thought you had Sam's memories." Dean pulled out a wicked looking knife and began to clean his fingernails with it.

Sam's eyes widened. Amelia detected a flash of fear before he flatlined again. "No, I do, I do, I just mean - I don't know anything about getting out-"

"Lies."

"I'm not lying-"

"Is he?"

Amelia shook her head. "I can't tell."

"What do you mean you can't tell?" Dean said. He was so calm. She wished he'd yell.

"I mean there's not enough to get a read from."

"What _is_ there?"

"There was a flash of fear, but you were threatening him, so-"

Sam sighed, coughed. "I'm not lying, I told you. I just woke up here."

Dean surged forward, grabbed one of Sam's arms and dragged it upward, clasped a cuff around Sam's wrist while Sam tried to pull away. Amelia stood to protest; Sam was a big guy and it worried her how weak he was, and right now, he was barely out of at least eight days clinical sleeplessness, and it had taken a terrible toll on his body, and he was no match for Dean. But she stood to figuratively stomp her foot and put her hand on Dean's arm and he tossed her off like a ragdoll. She picked herself up and heard Sam:

"Dean, stop! This isn't-!" and a yelp as Dean backhanded his brother into silence. Sam sagged against the wall with one arm stretched above him, looking up at Dean sullenly.

He should have been angry. His lip was bleeding again, reopened from where he'd bitten it bloody in his strange fit, and his chest was heaving, but Amelia could feel no anger from Sam beyond the initial spike. From Dean, however- Amelia closed her eyes and focused. He was something raw inside, something created out of want and want only, animalistic in nature. But he was human at the end of the day, and she focused on him a moment-

But a moment was all he needed to sense her work, and before she could have anticipated it, he'd gotten his hand around her neck and he was shaking her, and he growled, "You mess with my head and you'll know pain, lady."

So Amelia sank back, recoiled from his mind because she hadn't wanted to spend any more time there than necessary anyway, it was full of dangerous terrible roiling guilt and pain and desire and coldness, and she hoped that Sam started to give Dean some answers that would spare him any more pain.

Sam didn't react when Dean hauled his other arm up to clap it in irons as well, only winced as his shoulder got twerked around, hissed in through his teeth.

"Stop lying," Dean said. "You have Sam's memories? Then you know what I can do to get some honest answers out of you."

Sam's brows went together. "You can't do this."

Dean just stared, his eyes dark. The knife glinted in the dungeon's overhead light. "Can. Will. You can get me to him. And if you can't, you're surplus to requirements."

"Dean-"

"How'd you get out of the cage?"

"I told you, I don't know. Maybe Sam's not there," Sam said. He coughed, deep, but with his arms above him, he was having a harder time getting a breath. He rested his head against the wall, sagged with his knees bent, he was favoring his swollen shoulder. Amelia turned toward the door, but Dean must have caught the movement from the corner of his eye.

"Don't go anywhere, Doc." He was still staring at Sam. "Lie to me one more time-"

"You wonder why Sam never tells you anything," Sam said between breaths. "It's because he's afraid of you. Not this crazy torturing thing, not the violence of a fight with you. It's the way you look at him sometimes, like he's a thing, like he's a monster, like he's a loaded weapon. And now you're chaining someone up in a dungeon designed to hold demons, someone who looks exactly like him, who has part of his _soul_ -"

"Shut up!"

"How will you even look at him again, when we find him? I bet you'll never even tell him this happened."

"I said shut _up!_ " The smack beat against the walls of the dungeon, and Sam lurched sharply to one side, strangling out a cry. He pushed back to the other side to favor the strained shoulder. Dean didn't give him a break though, railed forward to slam Sam against the wall and dug his fingers into the shoulder joint. Sam's mouth opened and his yell shrieked up into the round room and then dried up as he lost his air.

Sam's chin touched his chest, working hard for air. He coughed and spat red. He blinked slow.

"You'd never even know," Sam said softly, swallowed blood. "That I wasn't him. If I hadn't told you, if I had followed his instincts and kept it to myself. He never expected me to say anything, neither of them did. Sam never expected that I would be able to tell you that I loved you and have it be real, and he was right. But he thought I'd keep this a secret, and that meant I'd never be able to tell you how much _he_ loved you. But I get it now. Why I should have kept my mouth shut. The lengths you go to for each other, what you'll do if you think you can get him back." Sam coughed again. "I never had a chance, did I?"

"No," Dean said. "So just tell me what I need to know, so I can get Sammy back."

Sam lifted his head to look at Dean. He was bleeding from the nose and lip, his eye was starting to black against the sick pallor of his face. "I don't know-"

Dean's unearthly primal roar reverberated in the room, but he was stopped from physically assaulting Sam - or Sam's double? Amelia wasn't clear on that point - by the tiny but determined Asian kid that had leapt onto his back and clung on like a rodeo cowboy on a bucking bronco. Dean toppled sideways, and then a stranger Amelia hadn't yet met raced passed her to tend to Sam hanging on the wall. She rushed after to help, and caught the keys Kevin tossed to her when he had wrestled them off Dean. Together, she and the stranger got Sam down; he looked like he was going to be sick, and she tested him for fever.

"Get off," Dean growled, attempting to dislodge Kevin.

"Get him out of here," Amelia commanded.

"I'm not going anywhere!" Dean said, "That thing knows where Sam is. I need to talk to him."

"That thing? That's not Sam?" the stranger in the trenchcoat said, and the man who stayed outside the room said, "Moose?"

"No, it's a copy-"

"I'm a copy," Sam said listlessly, head rolling against Amelia's shoulder. "Yes, I have a soul. No, I don't know where Sam is, but yes, I want to help you. No, I'm not okay. Thanks for asking." He punctuated the last with a coughing fit that had him doubling over where he sat on the floor.

Amelia rubbed his back. "Okay," she said, "Okay."

The stranger advanced on Dean, who had a hold of Kevin's arm and tossed the kid to the ground where he landed with a thump. The stranger looked at Kevin on the ground and levelled an accusatory glare at Dean. "Dean. You locked him up in a dungeon? Even if this isn't Sam... How-"

Dean brandished the knife. "I had to. Sam wouldn't have wanted- I had to, Cas. And don't you start. I know how much you hate to see him locked up. I know about the panic room, okay? So don't you tell me when to lock up my brother and when to let him go. Don't you fucking tell me-"

The man, Cas, looked stricken. "Dean, I- about that-"

"Don't. Just. Don't."

"Okay. I won't. But Dean, there's a way to know."

"Know what?"

"Whether this is really Sam or not."

"Why would he lie?"

"Why is it necessarily a lie?"

Dean appeared to mull it over for about half a second before he was on his knees, threatening to lose his lunch again. "You mean- How can you know?"

"With prayer." And Cas closed his eyes and looked so serene, and under her hands, Sam went tight with tension and he gritted his teeth and finally, finally she detected a sustained hill in his emotional landscape, something that couldn't be attributed to a direct reaction to stimulus, a muted echo of what she was feeling off this man Cas. Desolation and loss. But it was something.

Dean had been watching Sam's face, and now he scooted forward. "Sam?"

Sam didn't respond; he still had his eyes screwed shut and was focused on breathing.

"Sammy?" Dean said again.

Sam opened his eyes, shook his head. He looked at Cas. "I'm..." he said. "I'm a perfect copy, so I guess..."

"It wouldn't work," Cas said with certainty.

"I need to ask Sam some questions," Amelia said. "Can you behave yourself?"

Dean nodded, still staring. His landscape was starting to look a little flat itself.

"Sam, tell me the last things you remember of Sam's memories."

"Like I said," he replied, dull, "he was worried that if Lucifer made a copy, Dean would never know how much he loved him."

"Can you talk a little more about that?"

"Lucifer... It's a little game. Lucifer wants to keep Sam, but Sam wants to be with Dean, he's always choosing Dean. So Lucifer says he'll make Dean a new brother, someone he can love, so he can't use Sam's heart, obviously."

"What the-"

"Dean," Amelia warned. "Sh."

Sam threw Dean an apologetic look. "Anyway, the last time I remember it happening, he was going to use that vampire's heart, but Sam... made him mad. Held back." He looked at Dean. "You know how it is, the screaming is the good part."

Amelia looked at Dean too. Dean was white as a sheet.

"So he held that back, and Lucifer got pissed and said he'd make him a new brother but it'd have Sam's heart instead, as punishment. Because you'd get a perfect copy. Me."

"That's-" Dean stopped himself, didn't seem to know how to continue. Amelia tested him, found him a swirling mix of confused emotions.

"Because you couldn't love me, see?"

"No, I get it," Dean said, looking like he might vomit again.

Amelia frowned. Okay. Lucifer and hell and she remembered Dean talking about some cage. She was going to need more information once this crisis was past. For now, talking seemed to be the thing that kept fists from flying, so. "What makes you say you're just a copy, Sam?"

Sam shrugged. "Because I don't love him. I remember Sam did. But I don't. So. That's how I know."

Amelia turned to the stranger, Cas. "And you believe this _is_ Sam because..."

"Because I can pray to Sam, and just now, this Sam heard my prayer."

"You can _pray_ to him?"

"Yes, love, we get that it's all very new and terrible and exciting to you, but can we please get on with it?" came the British-y voice from outside the door.

"Yes," Cas said. "Sam is special. No mere copy could hear my prayer. I have expertise in this area."

"Expertise?"

"I was once an angel of the Lord."

"Oh." Amelia turned to Sam. "Kay. I'm going to try something, Sam. I need you to be as relaxed as you can be."

Sam raised his brows. "What are you doing?"

"Just going to try to find something out."

"Do it," Dean said. He didn't look, or when she tested him, _feel_ dangerous anymore, just spent and sad and concerned, but Sam watched him warily anyway, then looked to Amelia to nod.

She nodded back, then dove in. He was truly flatline, a feature-less emotional landscape, and it was symptomatic in lots of cases of someone who had completely shut down. But Sam hadn't completely shut down, he'd just come out thinking he was a whole different person.

Or, as Dean seemed to have been convinced, maybe he _was_ a whole different person? Looking around inside him, it might as well have been true. No wonder Dean could only see a stranger when he looked at Sam; there were zero emotional connections reaching out to anyone from Sam. It was like Dean was a mother bird whose baby had fallen and been handled by humans, and now he couldn't recognize his brother at all.

But she had an idea based on his account of real Sam's last thoughts, and she was going to pull a thread.

And when she came back out, Kevin was yelling and Cas was holding Dean back, and the guy outside the room was asking for answers, and in her arms, Sam was shaking


	6. Chapter 6

 

****

**Episode 904**  
" **Repression Sessions"  
Chapter Six**

In Amelia's arms, Sam was shaking.

"Sammy?" Dean said. "What's wrong with him?"

Amelia smoothed Sam's hair, shushed him a little, looked up at Dean. "He's going to be okay, Dean. Everything's okay."

Something in her voice, maybe, but Dean felt a little better. Tired. Really tired, and like he was waking out of a way too lucid dream, one in which he'd been fully convinced Sam wasn't Sam and he'd chained him up and smacked him around, his little brother who couldn't even get down the stairs without help. God, what had he done? Cas was holding him back, and he looked down to find that he was still holding the knife, and in some kind of disjointed horror, he realized that even now he wasn't fully convinced this was _his_ Sam, and he dropped the knife.

"Is that really him?" he asked.

"Yes," Cas said, but Amelia said, "Yeah, Dean. It's Sam."

"How do you know?"

She shrugged. "I guess if it's within the realm of possibility, he _could_ be a copy. But I don't think so. Based on his account of what happened before he woke up..."

She looked at him like she had before, like she wanted him to work it out for himself, and through the panic, he willed his brain to start working. Genius, Sam thinks you're a genius. He's wrong, but we can try, right?

And then, shit. Light dawned. Before Sam woke up, before Amelia had done what she'd done, Lucifer had been telling his little brother that he was going to make a copy of him, and then - "He woke up not being able to feel anything after you did your mojo," Dean said, numb. "And thought that meant he was the copy Lucifer had made."

"I told you it wasn't a lie," Cas said.

Dean shrugged out of Cas' arms, straightened his shirt, flexed his hand which hurt because - because he had backhanded Sam like he was some kind of mouthy vampire or demon. God, fuck. He took a step, just a step, toward Sam, arms out because he needed to prove to himself that Sam was safe and real and one hundred percent Sam.

And Sam lifted his head to look at him, and he looked so ruined and hopeless and white and there was blood on his face and on his shirt where he'd been coughing and Dean felt the hot sick rise and he fled from the dungeon, down the corridor as far as he could manage before heaving his guts out. Behind him, Sam's "Dean?" cried out, an accusation, a plea for something, something Dean couldn't give him.

* * *

"What's your name?"

"Sam Winchester."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"You asking me what my name is."

"Very funny."

"Yeah. I'm hilarious."

Amelia made a couple of notes on a notepad she had flat on her lap. Sam tried to read it upside down, only got as far as "slight depression" before she said, "How do you _feel_ , Sam?"

Sam pressed his lips together, shifted. He was in his room, on his bed. He'd woken up sometime in the night with his arm in a sling, his hand restitched from the thing in the church, his forearm restitched from the thing in Boston. They weren't Dean's stitches; he thought they were probably Amelia's. But that made sense; it was afternoon now, a full day of her asking him questions every time he woke up, and Dean had never been to see him. Couldn't even look at him. The one time he'd gotten up to try to go to the kitchen, Dean had taken one look at him and fled for the front door, saying he needed to run some errands.

So how did he feel? Like an invalid, like a burden, a prisoner, a fool. He looked toward the window and said, "Can't you just _tell_?"

"I'd rather hear it from you."

Which meant she'd already taken her readings and was satisfied he was back to himself, more or less. Less, probably.

"I'm fine."

"Mhmm."

He heard a scratch on the page and when he looked over, she'd crossed out "slight." He smiled, sighed heavy, coughed. "My brother won't even look at me."

"He's - I think Dean needs to come to terms with what's happened."

"I can't believe I - the things I said. I wouldn't be surprised if he never talks to me again."

"Give him time."

"Yeah. All the time in the world." They spent a moment in silence. Sam swiped at his face. He did feel a little better, if only because Lucifer wasn't holding him down and cutting into his flesh, and that had to be counted in the positive on anyone's scale. He cleared his throat. "So. You fixed me? I'm good?"

Amelia twisted her mouth up in thought. "You're gonna fix yourself, Sam. I'm just helping. It'll take time. Dean gave me the low-down while you were out. I wanted to hear it from you, but we couldn't wait. I'm sorry. I didn't know what I was dealing with coming into this, and if I had, maybe I could have avoided-"

"Don't. There's no use beating yourself up. Dean didn't know, no one knew. I didn't tell them. This is on me."

"Sam-"

"Stop. I don't want to talk about it. Let's just keep it clinical, okay?"

Amelia looked at him like he'd slapped her. "Okay."

Sam looked away, toward the window again. That look on her face, like when he'd admitted sleeping with her had been a mistake, less than a year before in a motel in a little Texas town. The hurt, the betrayal-

"So what are we looking at?"

"What?"

"Time-wise." Sam coughed. "You said it'd take time."

She resettled herself in the chair she'd moved up to his room and said, "As long as it takes. We'll start with a monthly appointment-"

"To repress that part of my psyche, keep it from taking over."

She nodded. "We'll see how it goes. I'm going to stick around here for a couple of weeks to keep an eye on you, make adjustments as necessary, and then, if you're doing well, I'll go back to Texas and come back for a visit once a month."

Sam nodded, barely listening. This was his life now. Monthly repression sessions to keep hell from leaking out of his ears and endangering everyone around him. Weeks of getting it right so that what had happened with Dean in the dungeon never happened again. Then a lifetime, possibly, of seeing Amelia, a woman he'd loved, a woman he still loved despite having figured out the truth no one had seen fit to explain to him yet. She had done this before to him, and now he recognized the storybook feeling of the memories he'd made with Amelia. And he had abandoned Dean to Purgatory because of them, he hadn't been strong enough to pick himself up and go on, and she'd - and none of it was -

"Sam?"

He wiped at his face again, turned to her. "Was any of it real?" She opened her mouth to answer, but he said, "Don't answer that. Don't." He brought a hand up to his face, just to touch the backs of his cool fingers to the heat of his forehead, just to feel them real there.

"Are you in pain?"

"No."

"You had a fever," she explained. "It's okay to say you need some tylenol."

Sam looked at her. Dean thought _he_ was touchy feely, the emotional one. Dean must have had a field-day with Amelia. Funny, Sam remembered her differently. They'd been grief-stricken drunks together, they'd sat quietly, fingers entwined as they recounted snatches of happy memories from previous lives. They'd cursed at the stars together, they'd laid themselves on the hood of Dean's car and cursed stars, fate, god and made promises not to do anything too drastic about it, unless they were going to do it together.

It had all been a lie.

"Sam," she said, and her voice broke halfway through and he blinked at her wet eyes. "I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry. It was real, it was."

"Please, don't-"

"I lost someone, Sam. I didn't make that up. We were young, seventeen. Engaged. Some monster killed him, and I got into this life to help people. I didn't lie to you about that."

"And Don?"

"My business partner. He watches my back."

Sam smiled, small. "Of course." They were quiet another moment. Then, "How am I ever going to fix this?"

"It'll take time, Sam-"

"With Dean," he clarified. "I've ruined everything."

* * *

Dean sat outside Sam's room while Amelia was in there with him. Whatever had happened, he didn't trust her with Sam. He didn't trust anyone with Sam, including himself. And he actively tried not to listen, because he'd heard too much already, too much Sam had been keeping to himself for years. And Dean wasn't worthy of that information anymore, if he ever had been.

You just don't get to chain your brother up in a dungeon _and_ be all torn up about it, okay? You don't get to feel played or betrayed _and_ beat the crap out of a guy who can sometimes barely walk. You don't get to talk high and mighty about being in the right, the trustworthy one, the one who knows best - you don't get to do that and then turn around and slip back into the torturer's role like it was a skin you'd never left, like it was your natural state, like you were the favored son of Alastair and you knew how to get what you wanted.

You just don't get to do both, okay?

But Dean happened to hear Sam say: "Was any of it real?" in this voice so gentle, like _Amelia_ had been the one who'd been hurt by their year together, and Dean couldn't sit there anymore like a voyeur.

He had to fix it. But he'd broken it so bad-

He needed a plan, he needed work for his hands. But the car was fine, she'd just been rebuilt, they hadn't been driving nearly as much as they used to, and -

He needed a bar, he needed a drink. He needed a fucking fist fight.

He needed to collapse on the floor and figure out what the hell his life was, what the hell was wrong with him, he needed Sam to take a fucking swing at him, but the Sam upstairs had all the fight stripped out of him, by Lucifer, by Dean, hell, by Dad maybe.

When Kevin found him, he had scraped together a little of column A and a little of column B: he was drunk off his ass and had started beating down a practice dummy in the gym for insulting his haircut.

But he landed the back of his hand into the side of the ancient thing and it went down, hit the floor, and all he could see was Sammy reeling against the chains from the blow, choking out a cry and trying in vain to protect his already - constantly Dean, never had a fucking chance to heal, Dean, from all the shit that rains down on him, Dean, this includes you, Dean - injured shoulder.

"Are you _drunk_?" Kevin said.

"What's it to you," Dean grumbled. He kicked half-heartedly at the fallen practice dummy and turned away to get grab his beer.

"You know you're supposed to wear like, work-out clothes for this kind of thing, right?"

"Why would I practice fighting in clothes I won't be wearing while fighting?" Dean turned to Kevin, beer bottle to his lips, but froze. There was a stinging red mark turning purple in the middle across Kevin's cheek, and he'd forgotten, and Jesus Christ what was wrong with him. He finished taking a swig and put the bottle back down, swallowing disgust. He turned to the bins of practice dummies, making a show of picking the one that looked least like it might fall apart. "I'm kinda busy here, Kev."

"Yeah, I see that."

"So am-scray."

"I don't think so. You lost your shit, Dean."

Dean turned to him, a little too far, but he kept his balance, and he pointed a finger. "Leave, if you know what's good for you."

"I'm not afraid of you, Dean. I should be, because you're out of control, but the fact is, this is all I got. So you're gonna listen to me."

"Talk fast then."

"Screw you."

" _What-_ "

"I'll talk as slow as I want."

Dean opened his mouth. Kevin zipped it shut with a jerk of his fingers through the air. Dean stared at the tips of them as they sped past his nose, blinked slow to get his balance back.

"You need to get your act together. You think I haven't noticed? You hover and fuss until you think he can see you, and then you run off. We got good news yesterday, in case you forgot. Your little brother doesn't have to die to close the gates. We figure out what his greatest sacrifice is, close the gates, he gets better, no one dies. But you're what, sad because for like an hour he didn't _love_ you?"

"You don't get it, Kevin-"

"So explain it to me. Take your time."

Dean shook his head. Kevin didn't get anything. Kevin didn't understand thirty years of torture, Kevin didn't understand ten years of _torture_. Kevin didn't understand fear if he had never had a brother who may or may not have been right all those years ago when he worried that he was still in the cage, that his life was an illusion, that any moment he'd wake up and realize he was still trapped in eternity. No, Kevin didn't get anything.

"Just leave me alone."

"No."

"What do you _want_ from me, Kevin?"

"You need to get over your bullshit."

"Oh _come on_ -"

"If I can get over Crowley, you can get over this. Figure it out."

Dean stared at him, then he found himself sinking to the gym floor, dimly thankful it was covered in mats. "I think I'm the reason death isn't Sam's greatest sacrifice," he said, and was shocked to hear it come out of his mouth, and then he felt dizzy, so - right, drunk.

Kevin steadied him with a hand - Oh, there, the room wasn't tilted afterall, it had been him - and looked into his face. "Oooh kay. That's ridiculous."

"Yeah? You didn't see him in Boston-"

"What happened in Boston?"

Right, Kevin didn't know. "Nothing- Kevin. Dammit."

"Whatever. I'm not gonna tell you not to beat yourself up, okay? Beat the crap out of yourself. You're kind of a dick. But even if you _are_ the whole reason Sam doesn't care about the whole mortal coil thing, whatever happened is in the past. You can't change it."

"No shit," Dean mumbled. Hard lesson, learned fast. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Stop drinking, for one. You're way too honest. And you're going to regret saying all this crap out loud. And you smell."

" _You_... smell-"

"Dude. That's just sad."

"You're gonna get punched."

"Not afraid of you, remember? You want something to do? Stop hitting stuff, and _people_ , thanks, and put in some effort man."

"I don't put in _effort_? I'm full up on effort, kid-"

"Yeah, sure. That makes sense. I guess you've done all you can do, then-"

"Smart ass-"

"Stay on the floor, man," Kevin said, pushing him back down to the floor with a foot. It was easy, somehow it seemed really hard to stand up just then, a little tilty, a little heavy, but he sensed sobriety on the horizon and that was an unpleasant thought. Dean rested his head in his palm, covered his whole face with his hand, felt it damp, felt the swell in his head.

"I can't fix it. I can't fix him. This Amelia chick, and he doesn't even want to- We finally got somewhere, you know? He's always wanted a home, and now he's just so _done_ , and- I forgot his fucking _birthday_ , and- Just like, whatever I do, it's too little, it's too _late-_ "

"Aw come on. Stop it. That's just embarrassing." He heard Kevin sigh, felt his hand come to rest on Dean's shoulder. "I got an idea. You wanna know what you can do?"

Dean nodded, miserable.

"Okay. Listen. Get yourself cleaned up, drink some coffee. Then, I got some work for you."

* * *

_**One Week Later** _

"Okay," Dean said. "Rise and shine."

Sam looked up from where he sat on his bed, reading the second in a set of journals from 1937 for his indexing project. "Uh. I'm up. I've _been_ up. It's like ten am."

Dean raised his brows. "Well, aren't you just a go-getter. Wouldn't that be easier downstairs, at a table?"

Sam shifted. Yeah, okay, it was awkward to manage the hard bound journals and his notebook one handed. But it was better than the whispers, Dean avoiding him, how the room went quiet whenever he showed up. Days and days of that, and it was more exhausting than just sitting here juggling books one-handed. "It's fine."

Dean rolled his eyes. "We got an appointment in town," he said.

Sam frowned. "An appointment?"

"Yeah. Doc says-"

Sam looked away toward the window. Dean hadn't called her "Amelia" even once that Sam was aware of. _Doc_ seemed so much less personal, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that that was all about how distant Dean wanted to be from her, from Sam, from that whole year that Sam had abandoned him.

"So? Come on, up and at 'em."

"What?"

Dean blew out a breath, comically annoyed. "I _said_ , Doc's arranged a buddy of hers to take a look at that shoulder."

"It's fine," Sam said, and regretted it, because Dean just gave him this look like _yeah right_ and smacked him on the shoulder and it _hurt_ , okay, fine. "Dean, dammit."

Dean grinned. "Like I'm sayin'." He grabbed the sling up from the nightstand where Sam had left it and threw it at him. "Suit up. We're moving out in five."

Sam hated that sling. It was just a visual reminder that he was an invalid, that he was one bad head trip from waking up a completely different person, and who knew whether that was over, and who knew whether he'd come back from it the next time, and how was _repressing_ crap going to help him anyway? He needed to face it, he needed to just put his back under it and either stand up or collapse under it and die.

But he couldn't do that. He couldn't do that to Dean. So fine. Suffer the looks, the jabs, the constant fear that he'd lose it again, suffer it all because he'd brought it on himself in the first place.

Five minutes later, he was sliding into the passenger seat and Dean was popping a tape into the deck, and Sam put his head back and prepared to endure whatever Dean had to say, or worse and more probable, the silence he was sure would stretch between them.

It was silence, and it was thick, but Dean bopped his head along to the music, and if Dean could pretend, Sam could too. He shifted his arm in the sling, flexed his fingers, wondered if somewhere in town, Amelia was pacing some hotel room, worried about him, or if she was sleeping in, or if she was running down more clients to treat while she was in the area, wasting her time with him. She came once or twice a day to sit with him and she tried to make him talk about certain things, and she adjusted him a couple of times, and yeah, okay, he felt better than he had since the angels fell.

And was that because she was around, and he'd missed her shampoo, and he'd spent almost a year with her, learning her laugh and the shape of her spine in his arms and the curve of her mouth? Or was it just that they'd reached a balance; now he didn't have hell in his head, Lucifer tearing him apart, but he was still able to feel like shit when he was reminded of his failures, his mistakes. That was a good thing, she'd told him. You're supposed to feel like crap sometimes; if you can't feel terrible, you can't feel good either.

He was still waiting for the good, but terrible, he had down.

Amelia's friend had driven in from out of town to meet them in a shitty hotel room, and kept them for two hours testing Sam's reflexes and strength and tsking about how slowly an injury like Sam's was healing. And Dean had said something about how Sam just kept injuring it, how he hadn't been too careful, how this wasn't his first dislocated shoulder, but they'd popped it back in pretty quick, so. And the doc moved it around and watched Sam's face for reactions and Sam tried to keep it stoic, but now and then it just _twinged_ and he couldn't help it, and he could keep from screaming when Lucifer was ripping him apart, but he couldn't stop himself from making an ouch face when his arm moved wrong? Pathetic.

"Well, I don't think he'll need surgery," the doc said, lowering Sam's arm.

Sam pulled it back to himself, held it to him and now wasn't he grateful for the sling Dean had made him wear? A week of immobilization and babying followed by this doctor pulling and pushing it to Sam's limits - anyway. Dean was already dropping the sling over his head and tugging it around, so.

"That's good though, right?" Dean said, holding the pocket open for Sam to shift his arm into it.

"Yeah, usually. Listen, here's my card. If he doesn't improve-"

"I'm right here," Sam said.

The doctor blinked at him. "If it doesn't improve," he said to Sam, "I want you to give me a call." He looked at Dean, and Dean nodded. Obviously, Dean was the responsible one, and Sam couldn't take care of himself, so obvious even a complete stranger knew the truth about him. Sam sighed and looked off, waiting for Dean and the doctor to finish their business. He heard Dean say _thanks, doc_ , and the doctor say _any friend of Mel's_ , and another admonition to be careful and pay attention to how fast it seemed to be healing, and here are some pills for the pain, and then some interminable amount of time later, Dean was ushering him back toward the car.

"That wasn't so bad," Dean said.

Sam watched the road.

"Come on, don't mope. Jesus."

Sam frowned down at his lap. "No, yeah, it was fine," he said.

"No surgery," Dean pointed out.

"Like I was gonna have surgery for this."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Cas can't just fix us up anymore-"

"So that angel friend of his-"

"I'm not letting that bitch anywhere near you again-"

"Dean." Sam shook his head. "We don't even have health insurance. We have no money. So what is this really about, because we both know it's not about _surgery_ for a shoulder."

"Nothing. It's not about anything."

Quiet, for a good minute and a half. So Sam said, "Listen. I'll be good as new in no time. We'll get a hunt or something. Something easy, okay, so don't look at me like that."

"Fine. Good as new?"

Sam nodded.

"Okay. I'm holdin' you to that."

Sam looked out of the window as they pulled into the long drive that led toward the bunker, toward his bed, toward that cave of a conference room he could hide in. Whatever. Whatever.

"Home, sweet home," Dean said, waiting by Sam's door to - to what, walk him to the front door? He could walk to the _door,_ Dean. Sam shoved it down, accepted it for what it was, big brother hovering to make sure the invalid little brother didn't faceplant. So fine. Whatever.

Sam walked ahead of Dean, wanted bed, wanted a closed door, wanted to just hide, and he fitted the key into the lock and pulled the door open, and complained when Dean hustled him down the stairs instead of letting him go right to his room, and for a brief flicker of a moment thought Dean was ushering him to the dungeons again, but then they were going down the stairs, too fast for Sam to really keep up with and he was a little dizzy from it, but Dean kept him upright and before Sam could fight against him or say anything more than "What, Dean-" they were downstairs and the lights came on and-

" _Surprise!_ "

Sam sucked in a breath. Let it out. There were people there. People who didn't live there. Sam stared.

"Happy birthday, Sammy," Dean said, and let him go, and Sam wavered and a chair was pushed in behind him. He sat when it hit the back of his knees.

He said nothing.

Dean looked at him, worried. "Sam?"

Sam blinked up at him, cracked a smile. He looked back out at the waiting faces. Charlie, Jody Mills, Garth, Cas, Kevin, Crowley, some people he didn't even know, and behind them was hung a banner that read _Happy birthday, Sam!_ and there were balloons and streamers and the conference table had a large cake on it surrounded by fruits and granola and other stuff, Sam wasn't stupid, other stuff he knew Dean had been buying so that he could eat _something_ , and.

Sam wiped at the corners of his eyes, and Dean leaned down to squeeze him at the shoulders, and that was that. The music came on.

"Bitchin' party, huh?" Charlie said an hour later.

Sam looked up as she came over to him, accepted the beer she offered. He looked out over the party to demonstrate that yes, he realized it was happening, nodded. Cas had brought his angel friend, Lethaniel, and they were cozy in a corner. Jody Mills and Crowley were chatting by the fruit - Dean stalked both couples and probably thought he was being smooth about it, and just what _were_ they supposed to tell Sheriff Mills when this was over? One more problem Sam had caused, Sam needed to fix. Sam smiled wanly. "Yeah, it's great."

"You okay?"

"Just tired. Alice is nice."

They watched Alice on the makeshift dance floor boogying with Kevin and Garth and, surprise, Garth's date Lucinda, the four of them laughing. Kevin, _laughing_. God. Sam frowned. What this life cost everyone they met-

"You talk to that girl Maggie yet? She's been giving you the eye."

Sam looked for her, the party planner. She was cute, blonde, cheerful. Kind. Like Jess. Jess would have planned a party like this. She _had_ planned a party like this, cake and beer and all of their friends had surprised him by moving all his crap into a house Jess had picked out for them to move into without telling him, all while he'd been taking his last final of the year, and they'd celebrated the move and finals and his birthday all night in a house full of boxes and it had been the last happy birthday he could remember.

And Jess was gone months later.

And half of those friends had been demons.

"The eye?" he said.

"Yeah, the eye. I mean who wouldn't. If you're into that sort of thing."

"Yeah. The gimp who can barely stay upright-"

"The beefcake who's _temporarily_ on the bench-

"Charlie-"

"Or maybe..." She eyebrowed toward the corner, where Amelia stood wall-flowering, watching him.

Sam cleared his throat. "That's- It's complicated."

Charlie looked at him, smiled kind. "It's cool. I get it. I got the deets on you, remember? And... I get why you might wanna... But hey! I'm not goin' anywhere. Maybe you just dance with me, nice and safe."

Sam rolled his eyes, laughed. The music changed and she looked up, lifting a brow like _see, the stars have aligned_ , so he relented. One arm around her back, and they danced a little, his other arm tucked between them protectively, her arms around his waist, and she kind of snuggled into his chest, and he kinda felt like a big brother somehow, and she said:

"Hey. I love you. I really love you."

His heart seized unexpectedly, and he squeezed her back with his good arm, lowered his face to the top of her head and breathed in her shampoo, and it was so clean, and innocent really, even though he knew she was an adult, even though they had put her into danger and she'd held her own, he wanted to protect her and keep her innocent, and he thought maybe kinda he got some idea of what Dean must have gone through every time Sam had gotten himself into some kind of trouble.

"Well?"

Sam chuckled. "I love you too."

"That's better."

* * *

"Come on," Dean said. He tugged at Sam's sleeve and Sam smiled briefly before moving to follow him, away from the party, from the laughing, the drinking, the antics of Charlie who was in the middle of another thrilling tale in the saga of Moondoor. It was almost a shame to pull Sam out of there, almost.

So Sam followed him up the stairs, taking his time, and as much as Dean wanted to, he didn't rush, didn't prod. But Dean hadn't been able to oversee this, hadn't been able to make sure it was perfect before Sam saw it, and he was eager.

Sam frowned when he saw that Dean hadn't stopped at the front door to go out but had instead turned down the balcony hall toward Sam's bedroom. "Uh..."

"Just come on, man."

Dean waited at the door for Sam to shuffle up. Sam didn't want help, least of all from Dean, but he had some high hopes. "Go on," he said. "Open up."

Sam gave him a dubious look, but he turned the handle anyway, gave the door a shove. Dean watched his face as he took it in, surprise and that cataloguing look he got when he was gathering info, then a genuine smile, big and broad and lop-sided. He turned to Dean.

"When did you-"

"This morning. Everybody had a job. Mine was distracting you." Dean looked around the room himself, grinning at the job well done. "What do you think?"

Sam's brows came together, and he walked the room.

New bedspread, new curtains, and the walls had been covered with every protection symbol Kevin trusted to protect his own walls, framed and lined up like a gallery on each wall.

On the left wall, Dean had instructed the crew to assemble a very nice, very heavy set of bookshelves he'd found in an old archive in the basement, and every shelf of it was full of books, books Dean knew Sam had read and loved but had never had the opportunity to keep, books he might have liked had he any free time. Sam drifted to the bookshelf first, his hand ghosting across the spines as he read them, smiling now and then at a familiar face.

But he walked past them without touching them, frowned at the dresser that sat next to them, at the photos in frames that littered the top, blinked away something from his eye as he traced Mom's face in that one he surely must have thought had burned up in the fire at Stanford. Dean could see the question forming, but Sam didn't ask, so Dean didn't answer, and Sam glanced back at Dean just once before tugging open the top dresser drawer. He closed it again with a little exhaled laugh and turned to the windows with his eyes closed, some private moment, or something. And Dean wanted to be part of it, but Sam didn't offer and Dean didn't ask.

But the inhaled gasp when Sam opened his eyes. The desk under the windows heavy and restained a bright dark deep mahogany, the chair reupholstered and stuffed, like some big shot executive might have, and the antique lamp Dean had rebuilt so that it worked properly, and-

The old hand-carved pencil box, kept through the years by one brother or the other, weathered now and beaten by use, and still the thing Dean was proudest of some days when everything else was going wrong. Sam picked it up reverently, slid the lid open an inch, smiled at pens now at least four years old. He sniffed, head bowed in front of the desk, and he traced the vine-like scrollwork with a finger.

Sam turned to Dean to answer his question. His smile was genuine, and his eyes were wet, and he said, "Where - How? I thought I lost it. It - wasn't in my stuff-"

Dean smiled, thin. "I took it out. I put away everything after you ... I just couldn't look at any of it. Well, you saw." The impala, covered in a garage, all of Sam's possessions and everything of Dean's that had been stained red by hunting in the trunk. "But I couldn't just-" He felt his eyes fill, blinked it away. "I couldn't just pretend you'd - I couldn't just forget, so I... took just that one thing and I put it on a mantel in that house and- And when you came back, you weren't really _you_ , and I couldn't give it back to that guy. And then you were so - I didn't know if it would bring back memories powerful enough to crack your melon, I couldn't risk it, and then... I was gone, and-"

"And then you were back, and..." Sam looked away, sighed big, resigned.

Dean shook his head. "Whatever, okay? All that crap is in the rearview." He watched as Sam regarded the pencil box, and for a moment, he thought Sam might hand it back to him. "Sam?" _Come on come on come on-_

Sam looked up, smiling. "I love it."

Permission. Dean grinned, swooped into the room. "Check the supply closet." Sam reached for the door, and Dean said, "We put a bar in there so you have like a place to hang your shirts or whatever." Sam shook his head at the assortment of shirts with tags on them already hung up.

"Dean-"

"And look, here on the nightstand. It's a dock thingie for your i-Pooed or whatever-"

"Gross-"

"And there's speakers in the corners of the room for surround sound. And I got a TV comin', but it's still in the shipping phase. And-"

"Dean," Sam said, shaking his head. But he was still smiling, so there was that. "Thanks. I mean it. But-"

Dean's smile faded. "Listen. If you don't like any of it, just toss it. But if you think you can live here, stay here, then. Put your clothes away in the drawers, man. Go to bookstores. Replace whatever you toss with something you like." Sam frowned, and Dean rushed in, "I'm not saying you have to do it right away, okay? No pressure. Keep this crap as a placeholder as long as you want. Just. Tell me you'll stay."

Sam watched him, and he chewed his bottom lip in thought, and his brows were together like he might say no. Dean didn't expect him to say no. Sam left sometimes, sure, but Dean was sure this wasn't one of those times. No, what Sam would do is say yes and either he was lying about it or he wasn't. So Dean paid attention. Sam swallowed, then he blinked and swiped a hand over his eyes and looked away, and Dean held his breath. Then Sam turned back and he was lit by the sun in the window behind him and he was smiling, even the little smile on his face was like fucking gold, and that was all Dean needed, and a moment later he was wrapping his arms around Sam, hand on the back of Sam's head, eyes squeezed shut against threatening emotion, and he said, "I was so scared, Sammy. And I'm so, so sorry."

And Sam said, "You didn't do anything wrong. I should have told you. I didn't, and it sent you to a bad place, and I can't- I'm so-"

Dean pulled back, steadied himself on Sam's shoulders. "Stop. Stop. We're done. Okay?"

Sam looked like he might argue, and Dean knew he was doing that thing where he agreed but only so he didn't have to participate in a fight, but Dean thought, baby steps, and he shook Sam by the shoulders and grinned and was the keeper of the sun again.

Sam smiled too, and he shook his head. "We have like ten whole people down there, snacking on grapes."

"I know, what hooligans."

Sam laughed. "I mean. We need some real food for these people."

"Fruit is real food."

Sam laughed. "Since when?"

"Since you can eat it without blowin' chunks- Don't," Dean said when Sam's grin took a nose dive. "No guilt trip, okay?" He smiled, as wide and non-judgey as he could manage. "I'm takin' care of you. Buying fruit is a blip on the radar of what I'd do to make sure you're okay." And shit was that true. Sam's healing black eye was proof of that, his shoulder was proof of that.

Sam laughed mirthlessly, then frowned in earnest when he looked back at Dean. "Dean, don't." He looked into Dean's face, brows together, begging. "Listen, if you'd been right? If _I'd_ been right? I'da wanted you to beat the shit out of my double and come find my ass, okay?"

This was a little brother Dean remembered, who cried when _Dean_ fell and scraped his knee, who couldn't go to sleep unless Dean was going to sleep, who wasn't happy unless Dean was smiling. A little three year old brother, a big thirty-one year old brother, who needed Dean to say:

"Okay." Dean nodded. "Okay."

"Okay," Sam said. "I'm thinking meat of some kind. Maybe throw it on the grill."

"Don't tease me."

Sam laughed. "I'm serious."

"I'd have to go out. We don't have enough-"

"So go. I'll be fine. I wanna hang out in here for a minute anyway. Soak it in." He looked around the room appreciatively, although Dean saw his hands shaking and thought maybe he just needed a break.

"Call Kevin if-"

"I can get down the stairs. Go."

Dean smiled. "Alright. But when Kevin asks, this was your idea."

* * *

Sam smiled as Dean left, and when the door closed, he dropped onto his bed, exhausted. The room was great, really great. Sam looked around and he could see Kevin working on these pages of symbols painted in red for hours in his room. He could see Crowley tutting over tacking them up on Sam's walls with thumbtacks, insisting they be framed nice and neat, hung like pictures. He could see Cas wondering over shirts in the men's section. He could see Dean sanding and staining and sweating and grinning over the ornate desk. He could see Charlie standing in front of boxes of books she'd picked out, shelving them all according to author and title and genre; none of them were lore or any other kind of research, just book after book of fantasy or sci-fi or literary or the occasional non-fiction that had nothing to do with monsters.

And he could see that Dean wanted this to be home for him. He could see that these people cared about him. He could see a possible future here. And what right did he have to be upset that Dean could so easily chain him up in a dungeon, beat his face, talk to him like a _thing_ , what right did he have to be upset about anything, when these people allowed him to take up space in their lives.

No right at all. But it still hurt. And he didn't deserve any of it, and what could he possibly done to have earned back that damned pencil box? Nothing. It was a bribe, to stick around, to not pull another Boston, to try harder, to not give up. Sam folded up on the bed, on top of the brand new comforter, and buried his head on his knees, and tried to figure out how to stop giving up.

* * *

Dean whistled as he went out to the car, started her up, listened to her growl and grumble. Shoved some tunes into the tape deck, backed her out of the long drive. He backed out, and every inch between him and the front door was a heartbeat lost, a tight thread getting tighter, until he had backed to the end of the drive and three-pointed himself at the highway that led into town. And he sat at the end of the drive there, and that thread from him to Sam was so tight it could have broken, and he put his head down on the steering wheel, and his shoulders shook and his face was wet and Sam would never know how _not_ okay it was.

It was anything but okay. But Sam needed it, for whatever reason, so Dean didn't mention that beating the shit out of Sam's double wasn't what bothered him, not really. He and Sam had both had their share of having to kill monsters who looked like loved ones. Sure, it was unsettling, and he was pretty sure he'd have nightmares about it for a few... thousand years, but no. What bothered him was that he was prepared to enjoy taking that doppel-ganger apart, and he'd lost reason, he'd lost logic, and he was afraid of this thing in him he thought he'd repressed long ago.

But _Sam_ was okay, and he was happy with his room, and he didn't hate Dean and that was enough, God it was enough. Sam was going to start buying books and filling up that dresser and making himself at home finally, and that was enough. Dean took a breath, wiped his face. Sam was, God, alive, and baby steps, okay? Dean smiled at himself in the rear-view and it looked sincere. Fuck that, it _was_ sincere. Because if Sam was alive and mostly sane and not being tormented and he _loved_ him, what was there to be so upset about?

And hey, if it was a lie he was telling himself, he was a damn good liar; the tight thread he felt about to break between him and Sam grew lax and Dean could breathe again. And if Sam wanted some goddamn burgers and dogs at his birthday party, he was going to get some. Dean drummed on the steering wheel as the music reached a crescendo and yes, okay. Life was fucking good.

His phone rang.

"Yello," he said into it. Man if they could get a case, that would just be the icing on the cake. Sam was probably itching to get back into the swing of things.

" _Dean Winchester_ ," came a sultry feminine voice.

"At your service." Lady hunters... There was the one in Montana, but he didn't think she was ever going to call him again after the uh, incident with the panties.

" _I do hope so._ "

Dean raised a brow. He hadn't pulled out of the drive yet, so he stopped where he was and sat back in the seat. "Oh... kay? Who is this?"

" _An old friend who needs a favor or three. Don't worry, I'll make it worth your while._ "

"Listen, lady-"

" _How's dear Sam, by the way? I never did thank him for lighting me up in that church. I haven't felt that exhilarated in centuries._ "

Dean growled in realization. "Abaddon."

" _Don't strain yourself, honey. I've still got work for you._ "

"Like hell I'd work for _you-_ "

" _I think you'll change your tune when you hear what I have to say._ "

**THE END**

* * *

**NEXT TIME, on _Supernatural_ :**

With Sam back on his feet, it's back to business for the boys as they take on a case. Nothing too strenuous, nothing too difficult. ...Yeah, _right_. Can Dean keep his head in the game when all he can think about is Abaddon's offer?


End file.
